One of the most startling allegations about ex-Bay City Rollers manager Thomas “Tam” Paton (b. 1937) involved him setting his dogs on the father of singer Les McKeown, who’d popped round to discuss some missing royalties.
The story featured in Channel 4’s 2004 documentary Who Got The Rollers’ Millions? which investigated claims that the 1970s chart-toppers had been defrauded by Paton and others. Paton denied it all.
Paton oversaw an early version of the Rollers in 1971. Keep On Dancing made the Top 10, but it wasn’t until 1974 that he conceived the teen-centric tartan look and drafted in veteran writers Martin and Coulter to pen Remember (Sha La La), Shang-A-Lang and Summerlove Sensation.
At the height of Rollermania in 1975, he had secured the band their own TV series. But after their fortunes dwindled, they sacked him in 1979.
In 1982 he was jailed for three years after pleading guilty to the sexual abuse of 10 boys over a three-year period.
In 2003, he was accused of trying to rape the Bay City Rollers guitarist Pat McGlynn, in a hotel room in 1977. The police decided there was insufficient evidence for a prosecution
In April 2004, Paton was convicted of supplying cannabis and fined £200,000.
Paton died of a suspected heart attack aged 70 at his Edinburgh home on 8 April 2009. On the night of his death, drugs and cash worth £1.5m were stolen from his house.
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