Elderly Football Coach Jailed for Historic Child Sex Abuse

A former football coach has been sentenced to eight years in prison for sexually abusing a teenage boy in the 1980s. George Welsh, 81, from Ffynnongroyw near Holywell, Flintshire, was found guilty of 14 child sexual offences at Liverpool Crown Court. 😔

The court heard that Welsh’s crimes were committed when his victim was as young as 13. The abuse included Welsh placing his hands down the teenager’s shorts and forcing him to perform sexual acts. In one particularly disturbing incident, the victim woke to find his hands and ankles bound with tape “in circumstances where it was clear that the defendant had been sexually abusing him.”

The victim, now a “mature grandfather, father and husband,” described how the abuse had left him “emotionally crippled.”

This is Welsh’s second conviction for sexual offences. In 2008, he received a 12-year sentence for 22 sexual offences against three teenage boys whilst leader of Shaftesbury Boy’s Club in Birkenhead. Media reports from that time revealed how Welsh had groomed vulnerable victims with sweets and trips to his caravan in Rhyl.

Despite his defence counsel highlighting his poor health conditions including arthritis, diabetes, hearing difficulties, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, an enlarged prostate and chronic kidney failure, Judge Stuart Driver KC noted Welsh had maintained a “remorseless denial throughout.”

The judge stated: “It was open to you to make a clean break of things and admit all of your offending. Of course, you did not, because you have adopted a position of remorseless denial throughout.”

Welsh will be required to serve two-thirds of his sentence before becoming eligible for release on licence and remains subject to a lifelong notification requirement. ⚖️