The former chairman of Celtic Boys Club has been cleared of performing a sex act in front of a child after prosecutors threw out the case.
Gerald King, 71, was alleged to have used lewd, indecent and libidinous practices towards the boy aged between seven and 11 at a primary school in the north of Glasgow. Court papers stated that the offence took place on an occasion between August 1991 and June 1995.
It was stated that King was a school teacher and a football coach at the time. The charge claimed King invited the boy into a room where he was changing where he then performed the sex act.
King - who had a number of trial dates set - pled not guilty to the single charge at Glasgow Sheriff Court. King, of the city's Springburn, was cleared after the Crown decided not to call the case.
He was convicted in 2019 of sexually abusing four boys and a girl while he was a teacher. The incidents spanned between 1984 and 1989 when King was also employed as football coach.
The children were aged between nine and 13-years-old at the time. One victim stated that King exposed himself in a changing room before a match.
King admitted in his evidence that he took a picture of boys in a shower with no clothes on for a school magazine. It was stated that the image was used with their private parts censored out.
King was found guilty at Glasgow Sheriff Court of five charges of using lewd and libidinous practices. King, who was also a coach at Celtic Boys' Club, was ordered to do 240 hours of unpaid work and put on the sex offenders register for five years.
Sheriff Johanna Johnston QC said at the time: "You were convicted by the jury of a number of sexual offences involving school pupils, you were their teacher at the time. The jury did, however, make a number of significant deletions to the charges.
"The charges we have before me for sentence are serious in nature and involve a breach of the trust that both pupils and society place on school teachers."
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