Ex-Scots football coach to face trial over Hampden Park child sex abuse claims

dailyrecord.co.uk:

A former football coach is set to face trial accused of repeatedly sexually abusing a boy at Hampden Park. Retired teacher Kenneth Divers was fully committed for trial during a hearing at Paisley Sheriff Court.

The 77-year-old is accused of child sex abuse over a 22-year period and was extradited from Vietnam to face the claims. Prosecutors allege he abused another youngster at the school where he worked and coached football teams.

He is said to have targeted a third boy in a house in Paisley, Renfrewshire, and faces four charges spanning 1968 to 1990.Prosecutors claim he "did use lewd, indecent and libidinous practices and behaviour" towards a boy "on various occasions" between June 1968 and June 1970.He is also said to have forced the boy to perform sex acts on him and exposed himself to the youngster, with the alleged abuse taking place in Hampden Park, Glasgow, and Sandbank Village, Dunoon.Court papers state Divers took the boy to watch Scotland at Hampden and Celtic at Celtic Park.He is also alleged to have targeted the same boy at the youngster's home in Paisley between June 1970 and August 1971, when the boy was 14 or 15.Court papers claim he also repeatedly targeted a second youth at another address in Paisley between May 1972 and December 1975.And he allegedly repeatedly abused a third boy in the 1980s and 1990s at a school in Paisley.Divers, who worked as a Technical Education teacher at the school, is alleged to have touched him inappropriately "on various occasions" and pressed himself against the boy.Divers, who had been living in Quang Nam Province, Vietnam, made no plea to the four charges against him during a second court hearing in connection with the case.Sheriff Eoin McGinty fully committed him for