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Glasgow Live
Glasgow Live
National
Rory Cassidy

Former kids' football coach facing trial amid Hampden Park child sex abuse claim

An ex-football coach accused of sexually abusing a boy at Hampden Park looks set to face trial.

Prosecutors claim retired teacher Kenneth Divers "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 and Sandbank Village, Dunoon, the Daily Record reports.

The 77-year-old was fully committed for trial during a hearing at Paisley Sheriff Court.

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Prosecutors also 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, and faces four charges spanning 1968 to 1990.

Court papers state Divers took the first boy to watch Scotland at Hampden and Celtic at Celtic Park.

He is also alleged to have targeted the same boy at his home in Paisley between June 1970 and August 1971, when the boy was 14 or 15.

It's further claimed 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.

The pensioner 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 trial and remanded him in custody during Friday afternoon's brief hearing.

No future court dates have been set, but Divers is expected to go on trial next year, due to delays to the justice system caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

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