Thomas Dougal "Tam" Paton (5 August 1938 – 8 April 2009) was a convicted child sex offender and pop group manager, most notably of the Scottish boy band the Bay City Rollers.

Biography Born in Prestonpans, Scotland, he was the son of a potato merchant. Paton initially drove a truck to aid the Bay City Rollers financially. He guided the band through to their period of success during the mid-1970s, nurturing their image of being the "boys next door". He was responsible for beginning a myth that the band members preferred drinking milk to alcohol, in order to cultivate a clean, innocent image. However, vocalist Les McKeown later said Paton introduced the band members to drugs. "When we got a wee bit tired, he'd give us amphetamines," McKeown recalled in 2005. "He'd keep us awake with speed, black bombers. You end up almost showing off to each other what stupid drugs you've taken."

In 1979, Paton was fired as manager, and subsequently developed a multi-million-pound real estate business based in Edinburgh, Scotland.

In the late 1970s Paton managed the band Rosetta Stone, and had a romantic relationship with the guitarist Paul Lerwill, who later changed his name to Gregory Gray.

In his autobiography I Ran With The Gang: My Life In And Out Of The Bay City Rollers (2018), Alan Longmuir suggests Paton benefited from friendships with politicians, police officers and senior members of the justiciary, and wrote of his fears that more will emerge about Paton that will show “his depravity ran deeper than we currently know”.

Longmuir states:

Criminal convictions and child sex abuse allegations Paton was involved in a number of legal controversies. In 1982 he was jailed for three years after pleading guilty to the sexual abuse of 10 boys over a three-year period.

He was arrested on child sexual abuse charges in January 2003, but was later cleared of all allegations. In April 2004, Paton was convicted of supplying cannabis and fined £200,000. 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 2016, Bay City Rollers singer Les McKeown accused Paton of raping him. In the documentary Secrets of the Bay City Rollers (2023):

In 1976, Paton took 15-year-old Gert Magnus, a member of the Danish boy band Mabel, under his management after the group had supported the Bay City Rollers. Magnus subsequently lived at Paton's home in Edinburgh. Magnus alleged that Paton groomed him and offered him a place in the Bay City Rollers in exchange for sex. Magnus said he was “completely sure” that, had he accepted Paton’s offer, he would have become a member of the Bay City Rollers.

In the same documentary, Gert Magnus states that while he stayed at Paton's house:

In October 2022 John Wilson was convicted of sexually assaulting children, with Paton, at Paton's home.

Death Paton died of a suspected heart attack aged 70 at his Edinburgh home on 8 April 2009. At the time of his death he weighed . On the night of his death, drugs and cash worth £1.5m were stolen from his house.

See also Jimmy Savile Edgardo Díaz

References

Bibliography

Allen, Ellis (1975). The Bay City Rollers. Panther. . Coy, Wayne (2021). Bay City Babylon: The Unbelievable but True Story of the Bay City Rollers. Wheatmark. . Jonsson, Hannes A. (2022). Don't Stop the Music: The Bay City Rollers on Record (2nd ed.). Independently published. . Longmuir, Alan; Knight, Martin (2021). I Ran With The Gang: My Life In and Out of the Bay City Rollers (2nd ed.). Luath Press. . McKeown, Les; Elliott, Lynne (2019). SHANG-A-LANG: My Life with the Bay City Rollers. Mainstream Publishing Company. . Paton, Tam; Wale, Michael (1975). The Bay City Rollers: Tam Paton’s Sensational Inside Story of Britain’s No. 1 Pop Group. Everest Publishing. . Rogan, Johnny (1988). Starmakers & Svengalis: The History of British Pop Management. Macdonald, Queen Anne Press. . Spence, Simon (2016). When the Screaming Stops: The Dark History of the Bay City Rollers. Omnibus Press. . Stambler, Irwin (1974). Encyclopedia of Pop, Rock and Soul. St. Martin's Press. . Sullivan, Caroline (2000). Bye Bye Baby: My Tragic Love Affair with the Bay City Rollers. Bloomsbury. . Wood, Stuart; Stoneman, Peter (2025). MANIA: Tartan, turmoil and my life as a Bay City Roller. Blink Publishing. .