Stuart Wooden turned 68 this 12 months – and he is now determined the time is correct to inform his story about his harrowing expertise with late Bay Metropolis Rollers supervisor Tam Paton. The musician and songwriter says he was plied with medicine to maintain him compliant earlier than being sexually abused, together with different band members.

Paton, who died of a coronary heart assault in 2009, on the identical night time that £1.5 million price of medicine and money have been stolen from his Edinburgh residence, was finally fired by the band. He then went on to serve three years in jail for the sexual abuse of a number of boys – however previous to that, he had entry to the Rollers all through the vast majority of their Seventies fame. Confessing for the primary time that he was among the many abused, Stuart informed all in his autobiography Mania, which was launched in shops at the moment.

“I met Tam once I was 16 years previous. He was intimidating and a bully, and all of the disgusting issues stated about him are correct,” he wrote.

“He was a predator. He abused me as he did others. It was a horrific and harrowing time. The medicine he plied us with have been a part of that management.”

Decided to not let the abuse have a maintain on him, he continued: “Tam’s squalid little life got here to an finish in 2009, I finished fascinated by him.

“He was a horrible human being, however the way in which I see it, he doesn’t get to outline me. Tam f******g Paton doesn’t get to win.”

His feedback come after Paton was additionally accused of the tried rape of one other Bay Metropolis Rollers band member, Pat McGlynn, again in 2003 – however, 26 years afterwards, police determined there was inadequate proof for a courtroom case to go forward.

The band’s singer, Les McKeown, confirmed in 2019 that the identical factor had occurred to him, stating: “I used to be given Quaaludes, a drug for decreasing your inhibitions and making you attractive.

“Afterwards I felt actually used and abused. I by no means informed anyone about it, not even the opposite guys within the band, as a result of I used to be ashamed.”

A 12 months earlier, founder Alan Longmuir warned tat Paton had “associates in low locations” and that “his depravity ran deeper than we all know”.

Nonetheless, Stuart has been detemined to not let the historic abuse “form” him, and has gone on to search out success releasing greater than 50 Celtic music information on his personal label.