If professions were ranked by how nefarious their members were, “boyband manager” would be in the same league as “despot”. Ever since young men learned to harmonise while making teenage girls swoon, there has been a succession of people, from the Jackson 5’s abusive patriarch to ‘NSync’s embezzling Lou Perlman, ready to take advantage of boys with a sweet voice and a big dream.
ITV’s Secrets of the Bay City Rollers title hints at something similarly unscrupulous: that beneath the tartan and the handsome grins, there were some financial and ethical shenanigans. But this programme proves to be far more troubling than that – it is one of the most disturbing accounts of abuse imaginable. Presenter Nicky Campbell uncovers a near inconceivably sadistic and far-reaching network of cruelty that the young men comprising Scottish pop rock band Bay City Rollers were forced to endure – as their manager Tam Paton controlled every aspect of their lives, sexually and emotionally abused them and facilitated their abuse by others. Those triggered by sexual violence and child abuse should give this programme the widest possible berth as it unflinchingly lays bare not just the abuse of the band, but also the widespread sexual abuse of children in Scotland in the 1970s.
