Hibbyradge
26-06-2011, 09:45 PM
VLADIMIR Romanov, the owner of Hearts, will tonight claim that a 15-year-old girl sexually abused by Graham Rix duped him into having sex with her for financial gain.
The latest controversial intervention by the Lithuanian multi-millionaire provoked a furious reaction last night from a leading children's charity and politicians.
Rix's appointment earlier this month as George Burley's successor at Tynecastle was widely condemned.
The new head coach of the Edinburgh football club served six months of a 12-month sentence in 1999 after pleading guilty to one charge of unlawful sex and another of indecent assault on the girl. He was placed on the sex offenders' register for 10 years.
In tonight's BBC Scotland Frontline documentary, Ro-manov says: "Here (in Scotland) I was surprised at the tabloid press getting involved. When a girl comes and tricks a hero such as this coach and says she is older than she is and then sells her story for hundreds of thousands of pounds and then the story comes to life a second time . . .
"The first time they trick the English and then the Scottish public, which I think is a systematic crime, involving all those who want to make money out of it."
However, the judge's sum-ming up at Rix's trial at Knightsbridge Crown Court contradicts such views.
The judge said: "There is no evidence in this case at all to suggest . . . that this girl deliberately set out to get you . . . no evidence that she was the one that made all the running, and no evidence of her initiating any sexual activity, merely the response of the teenage girl to your flattery."
Margaret McKay, chief executive of Children 1st, Scotland's leading child welfare charity, said: "I don't think it is at all helpful for Mr Romanov to get himself involved in this. You don't blame children and young people for actions that adults perpetrate on them. The adults have to take the responsibility."
Roseanna Cunningham, an advocate and SNP MSP, said: "I think someone should take Mr Romanov to one side and tell him 'When you are in a hole' – which he is already by employing Graham Rix – 'you should stop digging'."
Rosie Kane, Scottish Socialist MSP, said: "It is very worrying that a powerful and wealthy man like Vladimir Romanov does not understand that it is up to men to know the boundaries . . . The onus is not on a young girl. It is ridiculous and out of order for him to suggest such a thing."
The latest controversial intervention by the Lithuanian multi-millionaire provoked a furious reaction last night from a leading children's charity and politicians.
Rix's appointment earlier this month as George Burley's successor at Tynecastle was widely condemned.
The new head coach of the Edinburgh football club served six months of a 12-month sentence in 1999 after pleading guilty to one charge of unlawful sex and another of indecent assault on the girl. He was placed on the sex offenders' register for 10 years.
In tonight's BBC Scotland Frontline documentary, Ro-manov says: "Here (in Scotland) I was surprised at the tabloid press getting involved. When a girl comes and tricks a hero such as this coach and says she is older than she is and then sells her story for hundreds of thousands of pounds and then the story comes to life a second time . . .
"The first time they trick the English and then the Scottish public, which I think is a systematic crime, involving all those who want to make money out of it."
However, the judge's sum-ming up at Rix's trial at Knightsbridge Crown Court contradicts such views.
The judge said: "There is no evidence in this case at all to suggest . . . that this girl deliberately set out to get you . . . no evidence that she was the one that made all the running, and no evidence of her initiating any sexual activity, merely the response of the teenage girl to your flattery."
Margaret McKay, chief executive of Children 1st, Scotland's leading child welfare charity, said: "I don't think it is at all helpful for Mr Romanov to get himself involved in this. You don't blame children and young people for actions that adults perpetrate on them. The adults have to take the responsibility."
Roseanna Cunningham, an advocate and SNP MSP, said: "I think someone should take Mr Romanov to one side and tell him 'When you are in a hole' – which he is already by employing Graham Rix – 'you should stop digging'."
Rosie Kane, Scottish Socialist MSP, said: "It is very worrying that a powerful and wealthy man like Vladimir Romanov does not understand that it is up to men to know the boundaries . . . The onus is not on a young girl. It is ridiculous and out of order for him to suggest such a thing."