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Interview given by Eric Cullen to The Herald This interview with journalist James Freeman appeared on 30th June 1995, and formed part of a major article entitled "A victim of fame and success". |
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"I could never have pled not guilty, because I could not possibly face Frank Currens. It would be impossible for me. [He had been told by the Crown Prosecution Service that if he stuck to his story that it was Currens who had taken the 'mooning' photographs, Currens himself would be brought into court to cross-examine him.] "And if I were to plead not guilty on the charge from the BB camp they would have to drag in about 80 or 90 boys for no reason at all. They were all interviewed by the procurator-fiscal and everyone cleared me. It would be totally unfair on the kids and the charge is absolute nonsense. "I took videos every year at the BB camp yet the police took out a 15-second clip from all these hours..." The police, he says, took away every single video from his house - Rab C Nesbitt  films, pantomimes, family videos, youth groups, theatre groups, Boys Brigade - many many hours and from that they took out 15 seconds. A copy of that same video was given to one of the BB leaders... She was shown it at the police station and she said to the fiscal in a sworn statement that she saw nothing sexual in the tape at all. Why, asks Eric Cullen, was she not charged with possession of the tape? [It was the official record of a BB camp run by her, intended to be shown publicly at Christmas, so she presumably had her own copy. If the video was "lewd" as the police asserted, then she was in possession of a lewd video.]
"Why were the other victims of Currens and the other two men who abused me not charged? [I.e. because they also had been in possession of illegal pornography dumped on them by their abusers.] Someone else came forward and handed in videos, yet no-one else has been charged. That is just one of many inconsistencies. Another one concerns the man who allegedly came forward anonymously and told them about Currens. How could he be anonymous when the police said at the briefing that he had died of Aids? They must have known him. "I was charged with simple possession, no question of using that material for gratification or anything else. "Had they believed that stuff was really mine they should have charged me on day one. Instead there was ten weeks delay. Had they not known anything about Frank Currens they should have interviewed me there and then. Instead the police never came near me. "The video machines they took from my house were both broken. They took away my word-processor. From that came the rumours that I had used it to link up with a paedophile ring in Amsterdam. [It was an elderly single-function Amstrad word-processor with no modem or graphics facility.] I couldn't load the dishwasher far less use a computer for that." Cullen gave a different version of events in relation to the charge on the banks of the River Clyde, saying that he had been forced to lie on the ground and expose himself to Francis Currens, who took that photograph [i.e. the shots showing Eric and two younger boys mooning, which were the subject of a charge]. "I had no choice although people will argue that I had. I was 21 so people will say I was old enough but I was conditioned to being photographed naked since I was 13 and it did not mean much to me. It was just part and parcel of the whole humiliation I had suffered since I was 13." ... One of the most difficult incidents in Cullen's life was the tracing of his natural mother by the social services followed by a meeting in her house at Elderslie after months and months of preparation. "I had hoped to keep it quiet but my natural mother contacted the tabloids and it turned into a circus. Then when all this scandal blew up she was quoted as saying that she blamed my adoptive family for my sexual abuse alleging that they had not done enough to protect me. That was just total nonsense. "I was taken to public toilets to do things with men. There are a lot of men out there who have a part of my childhood and they have stolen it. My relative got pleasure out of watching other people doing it, as did Frank Currens. That is a recurring theme. "In the last two years my anger has become more directed against that relative who I believed loved me. I now regard myself as totally asexual. I am petrified of relationships. I have a fear of physical contact, even having a friend put his arm round me. "I withdrew from Nesbitt because of ill health. There was a rumour that I was sacked but that was not true. I am hoping and praying that I can get my career back. I have had my childhood stolen and then my adulthood stolen, two years of my life completely wrecked and I have been virtually imprisoned. [This interview was given before he was sent to Barlinnie prison.] If I get my career completely taken away I am being punished again for the sins of other people. It is simply not fair.
"The only thing I know how to do reasonably well is to make people laugh. I think I have lost out on the laughter and that is what I have missed most in the last two years. People used to laugh but they do not laugh now. "Bill and Caroline1[McFarlan]'s kids have been very important to me. Kids do not hurt you."
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