Ex-Celtic Boys Club manager will have to wait to see if he is cleared of a sex attack on a teenage boy because of a failure to reveal the victim’s crimes of dishonesty ahead of his trial.
Cairney, 84, is currently serving a four-year jail sentence after he was convicted of nine charges of abusing young footballers.
But yesterday, he sought to have one of the charges overturned in a bid to have his sentence reduced.
Judges at the Court of Criminal Appeal in Edinburgh reserved their decision in the case after the Lord Justice General Lord Carloway, who heard the case with Lord Drummond Young and Lord Turnbull, said the principle involved in Cairney’s legal challenge had the potential to have wider implications.
They will give a decision at a later date, yet to be fixed.
Defence solicitor advocate Simon Collins said that failure to disclose previous convictions of one of Cairney’s accusers from England had led to a miscarriage of justice. The victim in question was abused by Cairney in 1974, when he was 15.
Following Cairney’s trial at Hamilton Sheriff Court it was discovered the victim had previous convictions in England, including obtaining property
by deception.
