Outlander actor Scott Kyle has revealed poverty may have saved him from being abused as a youth footballer – and how his mum’s warnings about a paedophile coach were ignored.
Award-winning film, TV and stage actor Scott encountered predator Craig Menzies in the 1990s when he played for a boys’ club in Glasgow where Menzies was coach and physio.
Menzies was jailed for 12 years in 2024 after pleading guilty to abusing seven boys between 1986 and 2004.
Last week at Glasgow Sheriff Court, Menzies was ordered to serve an additional two years for sexual offences carried out against two boys between 1999 and 2002.
Scott, 42, was not a victim but recalled how Menzies’ creepy behaviour was brushed off as locker room banter.
View 3 ImagesCraig Menzies(Image: Police Scotland)
His mother raised the alarm after discovering letters Menzies sent, but was ignored and the physio went on to abuse children for years afterwards.
Scott, who dreamt of a football career, now believes he may have avoided being abused as he was too poor to go on overnight trips.
It emerged during Menzies’ court case that one of his tactics was to abuse boys while they slept.
Scott said: “When I was between 12 and 14 Menzies was a coach at the club I was playing for. He acted as the personal physio for the team, which for a young boy like me meant he was a figure of unquestionable authority.
“None of the other boys’ football teams had a medic that would run on with a magic sponge, it was just one of their dads. We thought we were much better, more professional, because we had a ‘proper medic’.
“Menzies didn’t fit the stereotypical image of some dirty old man in a raincoat. He was young, albeit more than twice our age, which meant he was able to say and do things that were laughed off as a joke.
“He was the one who would come into the dressing room and rub muscle-warming cream on our legs before a match.
“When his hand strayed to the top of a boy’s leg the lad might shout out, ‘He’s trying to touch my balls’ and somebody else would pipe up with ‘Aye, he did the same to me’. Menzies would laugh and say something like, ‘Aye right. There’s nothing there to touch’.
“It was laughed off and explained away as dressing room banter.
“If any of the boys got injured he’d take them into a room and massage their injury or put a bandage on. There was never anyone else there, it was a one to one ‘consultation’.”
View 3 ImagesOutlander star Scott Kyle spoke out about his childhood(Image: Getty Images)
Scott, Ross the blacksmith in Outlander, included some of his memories in his autobiography “It’s Not Where You Start” after hearing he had been jailed.
He could not speak further until now as Menzies faced further historic charges and has now been sentenced.
He told of his frustration that nothing was done to prevent Menzies earlier, which might have spared some of his victims. On one occasion, youngsters were encouraged to write to Menzies “to cheer him up” after he was hospitalised with injuries put down at the time to a fall.
He said: “At first the replies from Menzies were innocent enough but over time they became more suggestive. He would write things like ‘looking forward to rubbing your legs. Nobody rubs your legs like me.”
Scott’s mother was shocked to find a dozen letters while cleaning his room and flagged up her concerns to the club.
He writes in the book: “I sometimes think that if she had been the wife of a doctor or lawyer instead of just the wee woman who cleaned the shopping arcade she might have been taken more seriously.
“Menzies could have been stopped there and then instead of being able to carry on his campaign of abuse.”
He added: “I remember being invited by Menzies to go with him and four other boys to Newcastle to an overnight swimming event.
“I really wanted to go but my mum didn’t have the money to pay for the trip so I wasn’t able to attend. Only later did I think our lack of money may have been a blessing in disguise.”
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Police Scotland Detective Constable Victoria Leak said: “He’s a callous predator and is now being held accountable for his depraved actions.”
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