A “trusted” former Highland football coach used his position to sexually abuse boys in his care, a jury has been told.
Mark McAuley picked “favourites” during his coaching work, organising sleepovers and taking them on trips, before acting inappropriately with the boys, Inverness Sheriff Court was told.
One alleged victim gave evidence on day one of the trial and claimed McAuley touched him intimately during visits to his home.
The boy’s mother also took to the witness stand and told the jury: “We trusted him, we welcomed him into our lives.”
McAuley, 33, denies nine charges, involving four boys, alleged to have taken place between 2016 and 2019.
He is accused of sexually assaulting two boys under the age of 13 and two charges of engaging in sexual activity with boys under the age of 16.
Allegedly photographed child while he was asleep
He 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.
The charges allege that McAuley 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.
Boy saw coach as ‘father figure’
The first witness, who is now 17, told depute fiscal Susan Love he had seen McAuley as something of a “father figure” when he was going through a tough time.
“He took me out made sure I was alright, always did extra training with me that sort of thing,” said the boy, who cannot be named for legal reasons.
But he said when he visited the coach’s home to watch television and play video games, McAuley pinned him down during a wrestling game and touched him intimately.
“We would be wrestling about the couch, sometimes he would take my shorts off and then put his hand down my boxers,” he said.
Asked why he didn’t move away, he replied: “I couldn’t get up, I couldn’t move he was stronger, he was holding me down.”
The court also heard how the boy shared a bed with McAuley during sleepovers.
The teenager said the coach pushed his shorts up and exposed his penis while performing a massage that he said would help with soreness around the boy’s knees.
Under cross-examination from defence advocate Wendy Culross the boy rejected a suggestion that contact between the pair had been normal within the context of their relationship and that there had been no sexual element to it.
She said: “There was no touching inappropriately, there was no touching sexually”, to which the witness replied: “Well, there was.”
‘I trusted him with my son’
The schoolboy’s mother also gave evidence and said her son had “idolised” McAuley and that the coach offered her son “emotional support” during a tough time.
“I trusted him with my son,” she said, adding: “I wouldn’t have thought that somebody I had trusted with my son would abuse that trust.”
A second alleged victim, who also met McAuley through his sports coaching, told the court that he and two others had been travelling in a car with the coach when he began explaining degrading sex acts to them.
“I was a bit shocked but we kind of just laughed it off,” he said.
The boy explained that he had added the coach on social media and on another occasion he had received a Snapchat message from McAuley containing a picture of a woman’s back.
He said he believed the woman had not been wearing any clothes.
The witness said: “He was a good coach, he had his favourites. He treated them differently, having them do stuff with them outside of football, going on trips with him, having them at his home.”
The alleged offences came to police attention after two of the complainers discussed McAuley’s alleged behaviour and one decided to tell his mother about his concerns.
The case, before Sheriff Eilidh MacDonald, continues.
