A former scout leader has gone on trial accused of inappropriately touching a young boy on a camping trip in Aberdeenshire.
Eighty-six-year-old Jack Townsley is alleged to have used lewd, indecent and libidinous behaviour towards the child while they were at Templars’ Park, Maryculter, more than 40 years ago.
Townsley is accused of touching another three boys on their private parts while they lay in their beds during camping trips around the rest of Scotland.
Yesterday the pensioner appeared at Aberdeen Sheriff Court and denied the allegations.
A jury of 10 men and five women heard evidence from one man, now in his 50s, who claimed he was abused after he told Townsley he was homesick.
Giving evidence during the first day of the trial, the man said he had been put into a bunk bed in Templars’ Park when he complained about missing his family in Glasgow.
He said Townsely, of 171 The Auld Road, Cumbernauld, stood and watched as he “stripped off into his pyjamas” before putting him to bed.
He said Townsley then reached into his trousers and started to touch him.
The man said after he stopped touching him he gave him a kiss.
The court heard the man only came forward with the allegations in 2012 after he was made aware of another complaint against the pensioner.
The first complainer to give evidence in court yesterday said he had been abused in a tent during a fishing weekend.
He said he had bottled up his feelings over his alleged abuse until the Jimmy Saville sex abuse scandal broke in late 2012.
The man said he had been watching TV one night when something snapped and he went to the police straight away.
Asked by fiscal depute Anne Macdonald why it had taken 40 years for him to contact the police, the man replied: “Because I wanted to get something done about it he before he died.
“About five years ago my father died and he turned up at my father’s funeral. He wanted to shake my hand.
“I refused because I was angry that he has been patted on his back all his life.
“He’s been put on a pedestal.”
The man denied under cross examination from advocate Clare Connelly that he was after Townsley for compensation.
He said: “That is not the reason I’m here.
“I want him to admit what he did.”
The trial before Sheriff William Summers continues.