A former senior detective has claimed that Chelsea, Crystal Palace and Millwall dismissed warnings he gave in 2001 that a scout working for the clubs had a conviction for importing child-abuse images.
Clive Driscoll, who retired as a detective chief inspector with the Metropolitan police two years ago after playing a leading role in the conviction of the killers of Stephen Lawrence, said that the clubs appeared to be solely focused on whether the scout in question, John Butcher, was a good source of promising players.
Butcher, 67, continued to work as a scout after being convicted in 1993 of attempting to smuggle child-abuse images into Gatwick airport from the Netherlands.
In 2003, two years after Driscoll’s warning, Butcher was convicted of attempting to buy a child-abuse video from the United States. It is unclear when he stopped working as a scout for the clubs but was involved with a junior team in 2004.
In 2009, he was put on the sex offenders’ register for seven years after he was caught looking at paedophile images in an internet cafe.
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Driscoll told The Times: “I spoke to Millwall, Chelsea and Palace about John Butcher and warned them about him in 2001. I was a detective inspector at the time and I was phoning them from the police, but I might as well have been phoning from the moon.
“I was saying he had a conviction but they just treated it as a football matter. All they were concerned about was that he was a good scout, the football — I was saying this is slightly more important than that, that this guy had a conviction for importing child pornography.”
Driscoll said that his understanding was that Butcher worked as a freelance scout for the clubs. “The people I spoke to at Chelsea, Crystal Palace and Millwall all knew him.”
Butcher has insisted that he “has never physically abused any children”. The Mirror reported last year that he was convicted of breaching a sexual offences order by taking a boy to football matches while still claiming to be a Millwall scout.
It is understood that Butcher was employed by Chelsea at some stage, but the club’s employment records do not reveal either his exact role or the dates of his employment. Driscoll’s warning was made before the club were taken over by Roman Abramovich in 2003, since when all staff have been replaced.
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Butcher’s role at the club, and Driscoll’s warning, will form part of the investigation by a law firm appointed by Chelsea to look into historical child-sex-abuse allegations involving former chief scout, Eddie Heath. It is also likely to be investigated by the FA’s independent inquiry into child sex abuse being carried out by Clive Sheldon, QC.
A Chelsea statement read: “Everyone at Chelsea FC has been profoundly shocked by news of historical child sex abuse across British football and our heart goes out to all the victims. As a club, we take all allegations of historical sexual abuse seriously. We are absolutely determined to do the right thing, to fully support those affected, and support the investigations.”
A report issued yesterday by the Shirley Oaks Survivors’ Association into historical sex abuse at a network of children’s homes in south London said that Butcher knew Heath from the latter’s time at Millwall in the 1980s.
The report states that they have passed on information on “two other [unnamed] football coaches who worked on a voluntary basis at Shirley Oaks Children’s Home in the late 1960s who went on to work . . . in scouting programmes for football clubs.”
The report adds: “When former Met Officer Clive Driscoll approached Crystal Palace with regard to concerns about Butcher they were dismissive and derisory. We now know that numerous children were taken from Shirley Oaks to Crystal Palace for special treats, sanctioned by the management.”
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Palace said they were investigating the report — but that all the staff there at the time have since moved on and had no knowledge of the warning.
A statement from Palace read: “To the best of our knowledge, the football scout John Butcher, who is named in today’s report, was never employed by Crystal Palace, or had any formal role with the club, but we are investigating this fully and any information we can provide about his involvement here will be passed to the authorities.”
A Millwall spokesman said they had no record of Butcher as an employee and were investigating whether he had had any connection with the club.
The BBC have reported that, in an unconnected case, Queens Park Rangers continued to employ youth officer and chief scout, Chris Gieler, after carrying out an internal investigation into his behaviour. The club have said they are aware of historical child-abuse allegations against Gieler, who died in 2002.