After investigating the dark side of the Bay City Rollers, broadcaster Nicky Campbell has compared the pop band’s manager Tam Paton with paedophile Jimmy Savile.
Nicky’s new ITV documentary looks at the Edinburgh group’s rise to fame in the 70s as well as highlighting how Paton abused band members and took boys from care homes to his house where they were forced to have sex.
The Scot, 62, said: “Paton was similar to Savile in the way he groomed and abused people.
“It’s that sense of entitlement, whether it’s Savile, Paton, whether it’s a teacher at a posh school. They can have what they want and there’s no repercussions.
“Paton spiralled into this dark criminal underworld of drug dealing. There’s some really murky stuff. The flats he rented out, the connections he had and the people who died.
“Yet at the same time, you’ve got these lads, 17, 18 years old, who wanted to be pop stars but to live the dream, there’s a deal with the devil.
“We should hang on to the magic but we shouldn’t forget the evil that was lurking.”
Paton was sentenced in 1982 to three years’ jail after admitting molesting teenage boys. He died in 2009 aged 71.
Nicky – who revealed last year he was abused at school in Edinburgh in the 70s – speaks in the documentary to former Rollers guitarist Pat McGlynn, 65, who was abused by Paton.
On Pat’s first interview on screen about the ordeal, Nicky said: “Since I’ve been campaigning on this issue, I’ve been inspired by the guys I’ve talked to.
“I’ve had lots of very tearful conversations. One guy rang me and it’s the first time he confronted it for 50 years. He was sobbing and I started crying.
“That shows how you can bottle it up, then it all comes out. I think that was quite true with Pat.”
Asked if what he found means that he can no longer listen to the band – whose hits include Bye Bye Baby and Shang-A-Lang – Nicky said: “It’s not Paton on the records.
“When you see footage of the guys [playing] in the film, your heart lifts. We know the dark stuff going on
but you get a great big blast of beautiful fresh air.”
After TV star Savile died in 2011, he was unmasked as a prolific paedophile.
• Secrets of the Bay City Rollers airs at 9pm on Thursday on ITV and ITVX.
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