Skip to content

Call for Scottish FA report into historic sexual abuse to be published

BBC Hugh StevensonBBC
Peter Haynes said he was abused by linesman Hugh Stevenson who officiated at the highest level of the game including England v Wales at Wembley

A man who said he was abused by a linesman as a young boy is calling on the Scottish FA to publish a report four years after it was commissioned.

An interim review into historic sexual abuse in football released in 2018 said the governing body's child protection measures were not fit for purpose.

The final version of the report was delivered to the Scottish FA in August but has yet to be made public.

Peter Haynes, now 54, said he was abused as a teenager by Hugh Stevenson.

Mr Stevenson - an SFA linesman - died in 2004 but Mr Haynes said he was still waiting for answers.

"I have coping mechanisms but my family and the family of many other survivors have been waiting for this for a long time," he said.

"In my experience the silence that comes from Hampden Park equates to acceptance and the silence continues."

Mr Haynes, along with many others, have given evidence to the review - evidence that he said was difficult to recall but necessary to provide.

"For myself, my story will be there in black and white for everybody to see and it will be the same for everyone else," he said.

"We have done nothing wrong and we have nothing to hide but they need to publish now."

'As quickly as we can'

The Scottish FA insists the report is coming and said the delay was a legal one.

"We want to get it out as quickly as we can," SFA chief executive Ian Maxwell told BBC Scotland.

"Ideally I don't see it taking much longer and ideally it will be out before the end of this month, but the survivors need to be reassured we are keen to do it as soon as possible.

Getty Images Hampden ParkGetty Images
"The silence that comes from Hampden Park equates to acceptance", Peter Haynes said

"It makes no sense for us to commission a report and then sit on the findings but it has to go through the process," he said.

Patrick McGuire from Thompson's said: "The suggestion that there's a need to delay this report for lawyers to have a look at it really raises alarm bells.

"There's no excuse for this being delayed any longer and the only conclusion that I can objectively and logically arrive at is they are trying to redact, they are trying to hide, they are trying to obfuscate."

The SFA said the report will be published unchanged and in full.