'Shame on you,' judge tells former Winnipeg high school football coach sentenced to 20 years for sexual abuse

WARNING | This story contains details of abuse.

A disgraced former high school football coach was taken into custody Monday afternoon in front of a Winnipeg courtroom packed with supporters of his victims, after being sentenced to 20 years in prison for sexually abusing nine players over more than a decade.

People wiped tears from their eyes and embraced after Kelsey McKay's sentence was handed down by provincial court Judge Raymond Wyant, whose voice was heavy with emotion as he delivered his decision.

"From the bottom of my heart, what happened to you was not your fault," Wyant said as he addressed McKay's victims and their supporters, including the family of a man who court heard died by suicide months after coming forward to police in 2022.

"The guilt lies squarely on the shoulders of Mr. McKay. You were children. You were guiltless. You put your faith in the hands of someone you saw as a friend, as a mentor, as a teacher, as a coach, as someone larger than life to you."

The decision comes more than six months after lawyers made sentencing arguments in McKay's case — a delay the judge attributed to how much the details of the case weighed on him.

Addressing McKay directly, Wyant said he wanted to take the time to ensure the sentence, which was his last before retirement, wasn't clouded by the "abject anger that your violation of these kids had on me."

"You used vulnerability to your advantage in your twisted game. Shame on you, Mr. McKay — shame on you," Wyant told him. "Mr. McKay abused children for his own gratification. There is no excuse for what he has done and there is no cure for the havoc he wreaked."

WATCH | Former Winnipeg high school football coach sentenced for sexually abusing players:

McKay, now 54, demonstrated a pattern of grooming his victims and often preyed on their vulnerabilities over a period of 13 years, Wyant said. Some of the offending behaviour happened when the victims were as young as 12 years old, the judge said.

Some of them had troubled home lives and viewed McKay as a role model or father figure, court heard.

Court also heard McKay invited players to his home, where he at times showed them pornography, gave them alcohol, massaged them and touched their genitals. McKay also texted the players and would sometimes drive them to school.

Wyant noted McKay's behaviour caused rifts in some of the victims' families, and that his contact with some of the victims only ended when he was arrested in 2022.

Some of McKay's victims and their family members told court in vivid detail earlier this year about the effects the abuse had on them and their families, including suicidal thoughts, addictions, post-traumatic stress, depression and "personal challenges almost too numbing to contemplate," Wyant said.