Simon Spence - When the Screaming Stops: The Dark History of the Bay City Rollers

Contents

To the BPI (British Recorded Music Industry)

By perseverance, study and eternal desire, any man can become great

General George S. Patton

I was always very surprised, when Tam Paton was alive, that police action was not taken against him for sexual abuse or sexual exploitation. Surveillance operations on his house in East Lothian and of the flats [he owned] in the West End of Edinburgh for collection of evidence would have seemed an obvious and productive course to take on many occasions, especially given the numbers of rumours and allegations which circulated, and which certainly I was aware of from the early 1990s onwards. These were among voluntary/charitable sector organisations working with vulnerable young people, among journalists, criminal justice people and others.

Among homeless organisations, probation, drug and alcohol support organisations and youth organisations working with difficult or vulnerable teenagers, it was widely discussed that:

• The boys and young men placed in the flats were troubled and vulnerable with a difficult and often traumatic past, e.g. having been in care
• That prostitution or renting took place in these settings
• That there was a great deal of fear about speaking out and high levels of intimidation and it was alleged there had been at least one murder and other disappearances of young men who had tried to break away or speak out, and that this atmosphere also affected some voluntary sector organisations in their willingness to come forward
• That many of the young men involved with Paton and his circle were involved by them in crime so that it was harder for them to come forward to police
• That probation services found them among the most damaged, fearful and distrustful of all their clients.

In retrospect and given my experience of working with both abused women and men, and current revelations of widespread sexual exploitation in England, I think its possible some of the attitudes that left them exposed were a mixture of:

• Police collusion at a high level: I do not have evidence I can offer nor am I suggesting most police were involved. But how could all this take place in plain sight for so long otherwise?
• These are throwaway young people few care about, blamed for their own situations and their reactions to trauma; they were probably a nuisance to police and authorities just like the girls in Rotherham or Rochdale were
• Somebody was giving them a home a relief of the burden
• Mistaken beliefs among some professionals about genuine choices being made by these boys and young men that they were freely choosing with whom to associate without taking account of the severe damage to their self-esteem in their lives to date, their neediness and vulnerability nor any intimidation they faced. In particular there seems to have been reluctance to be seen to argue against the free choices gay young men were making about their sexuality.

I believe that these great injustices to the victims now need to be put right as far as they can, that the perpetrators will have extended beyond Tam Paton himself, that police inquiries and a historical inquiry must actively recognise fears, intimidation and reluctance to come forward through victims inveiglement into other crimes. This will mean offering at least limited immunity from prosecution, confidential phone lines and other confidential access and the use of skilled staff who have worked with very damaged and distrustful people in the past.

Doctor Sarah Nelson is a Research Associate at the University of Edinburgh (Centre for Research on Families and Relationships) and was joint lead professional adviser to the Scottish Governments National Strategy for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. She is one of Scotlands leading commentators on sexual abuse and exploitation.

Click below to hear the music of the Bay City Rollers; their biggest hits in chronological order. Click the Spotify logo at the beginning of each chapter to hear a curated playlist for that section. Surround yourself with the music of the band and all that surrounded them whilst you discover The Dark History of the Bay City Rollers.

Click here

S unday May 18, 1975. Tam Paton, the manager of The Bay City Rollers, is soaking wet. His long brown hair, which is thinning on top, his slacks, casual shirt and black shoes with two-inch heels, which raise him to 6ft tall, are all drenched. He is a little heavy but still handsome and strong, about 14 stone, and struggling like a childrens cartoon character to stay perched on the front bonnet of the small four-seater powerboat as it is being rocked violently by scores of screeching children.

The Bay City Rollers are crammed into the back two seats and there is a panicked driver unsure as to whether to push away the children or try and rescue them some appear to be drowning in the lake in which the boat is adrift. Paton has a cigarette wedged in his mouth as he grips the boats small windscreen while trying to steady the bands 18-year-old guitarist Stuart Wood, who is stood up in the boat and trying to shift its gearstick to reverse away.

One of the children is about 14 or 15. She is dressed like the band in an overall type costume with tartan trim and wearing a tartan scarf. Paton cant make her let go of the boat. The lake is about 400 metres long and 100 wide. If the girls, and they are all girls, go any deeper some will surely drown.

They have already risked their lives running across a live racetrack with souped-up Ford Escorts hurtling past at 100mph. They have avoided the police, leapt over barriers, battered down stewards and waded through a putrid swamp of water just to get to the edge of the lake. Now they are hysterical. The swamp had much broken glass in it; their plimsoll-ed feet in homage to the bands uniform battered Adidas high top trainers are cut and there is blood in the water.

Paton has already been in the water once. There are frogmen, in black wetsuits, coming to try and rescue the girls. There are hundreds more screaming and sobbing girls wading and doggy paddling toward the boat. The bands 19-year-old singer Les McKeown has already been dragged off the boat and into the lake. The girls, many of whom have his name inscribed on their backs or the bottoms of their costumes, left deep scratch marks on his thin chest. His bollocks and cock are bruised from their clutches. Still Paton cannot prise this girls hands free from the powerboat. He grimaces, fag in gob, and pushes the heel of his shoe hard into her shoulder.

And this is normal for The Bay City Rollers. They are pops hottest act. They have been at number one for the past six weeks now with their single Bye Bye Baby. Their second album, released with indelicate haste following the success of their first, is also at number one. They are at the very pinnacle of their fame in the UK. They have their own weekly childrens television show on ITV, their own magazine, a clothing range, and a vast slew of merchandising including board games and pillowcases.

Right now, in Mallory Park, Leicestershire, in the middle of England, 100 miles north of London and 300 miles south of the bands Edinburgh home, they are three weeks into a sold-out six-week UK tour that has been so chaotic, hysterical and dangerous, that there has been talk in Parliament of banning the group from playing live. Already there has been a death linked to the group, a policeman supposedly killed by the fans as he tried to hold them back.