100 Inconvenient Voices

The question put to you is simple – do you support Helene and Michelle Gray (and the many like them) in their quest for answers and justice?

To add more context to that, they are very clearly having to struggle against what appears to be an inescapable and insurmountable tide, one of deliberate and orchestrated obstruction. As it has always been.

Answers and justice on the historical instances of child-sexual abuse in Scottish football would be best served by a public enquiry. This is how the cards have fallen and is where we as a nation currently finds itself. We have seen targeted justice meted out by the legal system, which has tried and convicted a number of predators operating under-the-banner, under-the-watch and on-the-grounds of Celtic FC. But these court cases have thrown up even more questions.

There is a suggestion that there could be more cases put through the court system. A total of 5 predators prosecuted so far, but with claims made of up to fourteen. The number of victims is no less than one hundred. Many of those cases haven’t made the court rooms. Estimates of up to a total of 10,000 instances of abuse. That is staggering numbers. But it is what this all means, beyond the terrifying scale of abuse, that really emphasises calls for the public enquiry.

How was this allowed? The victims, the families, the public need to know what’s happened here. How has this environment, this sanctuary for abuse, been allowed to exist for so long? How have so many questions and complaints been blithely batted away year upon year, including the times when the abuse would’ve been at it’s most frequent? To eventually be worn down to an uneasy, unfulfilled silence.

The answer appears to be that justice has and is being obstructed – obviously by those directly involved, but then also by those that knew and were made aware, those with a vested or professional interest. Somewhere along the line a corporate decision was made to keep a lid on the reputation-damaging truth. Here we must ask questions of the Celtic board and it’s chosen course of actions. We must surely look at the inaction of the SFA – a governing body that has failed to govern. Circumstance would suggest a cross-over in personnel over critical dates and periods. Again, these are only questions, but it is what everybody is thinking and asking. That is has been covered up is not in doubt but by how much and by whom? How much of that silence has been forced and how much gave voluntarily?

The answer to my opening question is either Yes or No.

Yes, I support the Gray family is fairly straight-forward and self explanatory. The plight of a family fighting for truth and justice over the hurt and damage of a Son or Brother is an easy one to empathise with. More so, when the pleas for help are coldly ignored in public view. And even more so still, when the smoke of injustice and corruption hangs in the air like a suffocating fog. There is enough information in the public domain and there are enough victims seeking justice to suggest that it is far from served.

If your answer is No, I do not support the Gray family then I can only see two conclusions. It may be that you genuinely believe that justice has been carried through – that enough truth has been uncovered. That rumours and suggestion are just that and that the victims and families should be content with the situation as it stands. If that is the case, then your idea of justice differs from the majority and I believe we’d have a chaotic and dysfunctional society if everybody and every case was satisfied with such a pitiful level of scrutiny and thoroughness.

The other conclusion is that you actively do not want to honour the wishes of a large majority of the victims – which exceeds 100 individuals for the Celtic FC related cases alone. That you neither want nor back a full public enquiry into the incidents at Celtic, and Hibs, and Rangers and God knows how many more clubs. It is a curious position to hold and surely one that cannot be on common decency. Therefore, it has to derive from somewhere else, perhaps some misplaced tribal defence of the indefensible or a tribal fear that your chosen football club will be damaged during the journey to justice and closure; perhaps grounded in an underlying thought and admission to yourself that it should be damaged. A desire to see your club benefit by swerving any head-on collision on this scandal. A desire that the club share as they work tirelessly, with no lack of effort and input, to that end.

Make no mistake, the press can make or break any victims calls for justice. They hold tremendous power and influence over society. We have seen this influence and recent history has proven it over and over. Rumours were rife across the country about Saville, yet nothing happened for decades and even then, it only exploded in the press once he had died – in short, he was protected. God only knows what the chatter must have been like in the tea rooms and public houses around Rotherham. The people responsible for justice chose to look the other way. The press (nationally at least) chose (or were told) not to pick it up. Only when the scale of depravity and damage became impossible to ignore were the press then allowed to report. By that stage the public outrage was flint and tinder and finally the heat under the seats of the holders of justice was allowed to rise. Justice followed, if long overdue. As did the public enquiry – into the crimes, the factors and facets, the sub-culture that begat it and the framework that allowed it the continue – the framework that failed so many.

And so it is in Scotland. We have the guardians of justices sitting on their hands with their chairs barely lukewarm. Unwilling to grant the victims and the public their full and open enquiry. Our current Justice Secretary is happy to signal on twitter about the Epstein case yet seemingly ignorant to the scandal festering right under his own nose. We can draw our own conclusions about his motives.

And our beloved press. In the past 12 months some shafts of light have begun to break-through. Some courageous journalism on the back of immeasurably brave work from the victims and their families. But it’s all been too little, it’s been so limited and often it has failed to carry the momentum and natural expansion of events. Amongst this there have been whispered calls for public enquiries but more in the grudging shape of there probably should be and not there absolutely must be! – it’s a telling difference. Make no mistakes the press is holding back or being held back.

It grates my very soul to see the self-proclaimed great and good of Scottish football sit this one out. Some individuals who will be aware of a hell of a lot more than most; how it could happen, how many looked the other way and who’s been party to any damage limitation strategy??? People are in possession of these answers. Individuals who are never short of a word or two, or of an opinion when it suits them. It’s these clear injustices and the choice of so many to answer “No” to the victim’s plea that really irritates. It’s simply wrong. This is the press siding with the apparatus and enablers of abuse, actively obstructing justice.

The victims require a bare minimum of the press representing their story until they achieve some of their wishes and gain some modicum of contentment. The fair coverage of this plight would grow public empathy and respect. It would undoubtedly open many more eyes to the ongoing injustice. The oxygen of coverage and public support is essential to light a fire under the seat of justice. Like it was with Rotherham. With Saville and co. With Hillsborough. People that have had their lives ruined at least deserve that. And not the secretive or politically-designed half measures we see being applied to this scandal. Not the patchy coverage the Scottish press provides, where major events and disclosures are missed with astounding regularity. Where people who have spent a large amount of their career investigating this very subject suddenly lose their voice. The only side that this behaviour benefits is the one with something to hide. The truth suffers.

Full disclosure. I’m a Rangers fan and my club appears to have questions to answer. It looks like predators were employed at my club too at some point. Those victims have the same right to answers and justice and the revelations of this abuse only strengthens the case for a full public enquiry across Scottish football. The air needs cleared and the victims need closure. I have just watched my club get kicked out of the top league for 4 whole years in a furore on trivial tax debts. I fear no sanction so long as justice is done. And yet many who put Rangers down and laughed as punishment was dished out for admin issues are absolutely petrified of a similar justice and punishment befalling their club. A fear that drives them to deny justice to genuine victims. I have no doubt about that.

One last thing. The adversary of the victims in this is a multi-million-pound business. It has the backing of many faithful servants. It has navigated and weathered this storm for decades and would happily sit tight for as long as it takes. It has the means to maintain the status quo, to carefully usher the distraction back into the long grass. For the victims, it has taken tremendous courage and bravery to step-up, but that courage has a limit and any rich, cynical business knows this too well. The attritional effect of having your voice repeatedly dismissed and disrespected is undeniable and must be soul destroying. What are sporadic stories or headlines to us, are the fight of lifetime to these brave people. We have a duty to keep this alive until the victims are satisfied, and not before. We must all (everybody in football and beyond) keeping asking our press and our MPs/MSPs what side they are on until the Gray’s get their fair hearing.