A former Highland children’s football coach has gone on trial accused of a string of child sex offences.
Mark McAuley, 33, who previously ran children’s football coaching across Ross-shire and Sutherland, denies nine charges involving four boys.
He is accused of sexually assaulting two children under the age of 13 and two charges of engaging in sexual activity with boys under the age of 16.
McAuley also faces three charges of directing a verbal sexual communication to a child and one of causing a child to hear a verbal sexual communication, as well as a single charge of causing a child to look at a sexual image.
The offences are alleged to have taken place at addresses in Tain, Dunfermline and Edinburgh, as well as in a vehicle on the A9 and elsewhere between February 2016 and August 2019.
Mark McAuley, former football coach denies child sex charges
The charges allege that McAuley, of Pitdinnie Place, Dunfermline, massaged boys’ legs, asked them to remove their clothing and tried to get them to share his bed while he wore only his underwear.
He is also accused of repeatedly pinning a child down and putting his hand down their trousers to touch their private parts, pushing a child’s shorts up to expose his private parts and photographing a child while he was asleep.
It is further alleged that he described sexual acts to children as well as describing a sexual image to one child and sending an image of a naked woman to another.
The trial, at Inverness Sheriff Court, got underway this morning, and is expected to last until the end of the week.
