Jail warning as former Easter Ross football coach found guilty of sexually assaulting boys
Register for free to read more of the latest local news. It's easy and will only take a moment.
A former Celtic youth coach who claimed to have also worked with Dunfermline Athletic and Alloa has been convicted of sexually assaulting boys who he had befriended while running a soccer academy in the Highlands.
Mark McAuley of Pitdinnie Place, Dunfermline had worked for the Parkhead club's International Academy for around a year after setting up his own football coaching enterprise in Easter Ross.
SEE ALSO: Coach became 'father figure' to boys
Former coach denies assault but admits he shared bed
An allegation against him had already been made which was not pursued but when another schoolboy in his charge confessed the abuse to one of his pals, the mother reported it to police and an investigation began.
McAuley was facing five sexual offence charges after Sheriff Eilidh Macdonald ruled that a fourth charge should not go to the jury because it did not accord with the evidence. Three had already been dropped by fiscal depute Susan Love.
They involved sexual activity with two boys and having a sexual conversation with two others committed between 2016 and 2019. They took place in properties in Tain, Dunfermline, Edinburgh and a car on the A9.
A jury took two hours and fifteen minutes to return their majority verdicts on all five remaining charges.
The 33 year old, who ran the Do Soccer group in Tain, broke down in tears when he heard he had been found guilty. Family and friends in the public gallery also sobbed as his bail was continued by Sheriff Elidh Macdonald.
The Sheriff told McAuley: "The court will be considering a custodial sentence."
She ordered him to co-operate with a social background report and a sex offender's programme assessment. He will return to Inverness Sheriff Court on July 4 for sentence.
One boy told how McAuley would take off some of his clothes, grab his penis after pushing up his shorts and massage his thighs while they shared his bed in his tiny home at Hilton Cottages, near Tain.
Another boy said McAuley also massaged his thighs while in the same bed.
Two more of his players said McAuley asked them about their sex lives and spoke graphically about sex acts.
The case bore similarities to another youth coach who had Celtic connections. Jim Torbett had three years added to his current sentence for sexually abusing one of his players over a period of years.
Like Torbett, McAuley would target boys with vulnerabilities. Two of them were in broken homes, he took them on trips, for meals and molest them outwith the presence of other adults. He also shared a bed with his victims.
Fiscal depute Susan Love told the jury: "He was in a position of trust and he abused that trust to sexually assault two of his students - his favourites - having installed himself in two families who were going through a hard time."
His defence counsel, Wendy Culross asked the jury to believe her client that "nothing sinister went on."
She said there had been bad judgement and McAuley told the jury he would do things differently now. He admitted sleeping in the same bed as the boys because "there was no alternative in my one bedroom cottage" and giving two of them massages "in the sporting context."
He denied there was sexual motivation. But the jury didn't believe him and he is now facing a jail sentence.
