Continued
According to Webster, “It’s really important to emphasise that sexual abuse is about positions of power, that’s why sport and coach relationship really lends itself to that, but it’s not exclusive to sport. I’ve been asked whether sport or football has a sexual abuse problem – it’s like, no, society has a problem with sexual abuse.”
Position of trust
The relationship between coach and young athlete lends itself to exploitation, says Woodward, not just because a predator has unfettered access to the child, but because he is the gateway to what the child wants more than anything else. “It’s not just the athlete – what it is is that desire to be an athlete, to be a professional footballer. It’s the ultimate boys’ dream to be that. And they can take it away like the click of a finger.”
And, like Woodward says with the title of his book, a coach is in a relatively unique position of trust with a child. The relationship is, by default, physical. The coach has access to the athlete’s body, and the places where they wash, or change their clothes. The coach functions outside normal time boundaries of school, and is often alone with a protégé.
I sat with him and his words to me were: I still love you. And I did that and I got in the car and I cried. But the reason behind it was I wanted to out that football club for what they did to me and so many others. They knew what was going on
Webster explains that the coach’s position of power “forms the fundamental basis of the grooming process which can start long before physical abuse”.
“When it happened to me, I completely trusted my coach, because I’d spent so much time with him before he’d even done anything physically to me, but little did I know that was part of the grooming process to get me in a position where you implicitly trust that person. It’s very, very confusing because this is somebody that I’ve known, that has my best interests.
“I wanted to be a good athlete, I wanted to win, I’m competitive, I wanted to be the best. And you believe them, not because you, the victim, are a fool, but because they’ve already groomed you for so long to believe everything that they say.
“I always say that the perpetrator puts their shame into the victim, and shame is such a powerful emotion that when you feel it, you feel bad, you feel like you’ve done wrong. And that gives the perpetrator the best cover ever, by shaming the victim, so the victim never says anything.”
“Position of trust” laws – or Section 21 of the Sexual Offences Act 2003 – make it illegal for adults in certain roles to have sex with a child in their care under 18. This covers positions like teacher, carers and hospital workers. This does not cover sports coaches.
The Ministry of Justice recognises that this is a loophole and a problem, and has said in the past that it will expand the definition to include coaches. Because as it stands, a coach could groom an athlete until he or she turns 16, and then abuse them and claim it was consensual.
Tracey Crouch, then the sports minister, proposed a law in 2017 to raise the age of consent to 18 when it comes to sports coaches, as it is for teachers, hospital workers and carers. This has not happened yet.
The Offside Trust responded: “We support the proposed law to make it illegal for sports coaches to have sexual relations with 16 and 17-year-olds in their care. This anomaly puts vulnerable people at risk of abuse. The Offside Trust is now working with the FA, clubs and other organisations on a range of safeguarding issues.”
Natalie Marrison, partner and head of personal injury and abuse law at Ramsdens Solicitors who helps families affected by child abuse, tells The Independent: “The extent of high-profile sports abuse scandals in recent years has highlighted the importance of safeguarding young men, women and children involved in sport from predators who occupy a position of trust.”
Marrison, who is also a trustee of the charity Parents Against Child Sexual Exploitation, says: “The
Larry Nassar scandal last summer highlighted the prevalence of the problem in the US. During Nassar’s seven-day sentencing hearing, the name
John Geddert was mentioned each day. Accusations have included young athletes as being deprived of water by Geddert and having strict weight restrictions imposed upon them.”
Webster, too, mentions the Nassar case. “When I read the testimony and statement from the US gymnasts, honest to god you could have put my name in there and replaced the perpetrator’s name – it was pretty much the same. And that’s shocking because I was a kid brought up in Sheffield, they were over in the US … and the commonality around sport and that coaching scenario is that they kind of manipulate and get into their head that without them, you’re nothing. And I think that’s what’s so powerful.”
90
cases against Bennell are still waiting for review
What next for English football?
In the summer of 2018, the Sheldon inquiry reported that after nearly two years of investigation it had found no evidence of institutional coverup in UK football, or of a paedophile ring. The full report was expected in September, but
it was delayed due to Bennell’s pending retrial. The Offside Trust said it was “a huge disappointment”, and asked for an interim report. At the time of writing, no new date has been announced.
The inquiry has reviewed tens of thousands of documents and interviewed more than a hundred people, looking closely at Crewe, Manchester City, Aston Villa and Newcastle, as well as Chelsea given the scale of allegations against Heath, their chief scout and a long-time abuser.
An
independent report into the Heath scandal found that Gradi, who was then Chelsea’s assistant manager and who has now been suspended by the FA,
failed to report Heathdespite a complaint that he assaulted a boy in the shower. Crewe, for its part, has abandoned plans for its own independent investigation. Taylor, the journalist who broke the story in the first place, tells The Independent that he believes the club has been “incredibly hard-faced about everything – to his knowledge they’ve never reached out to the victims … basically there appears to be no human touch there”.
Since the revelations, he says, Crewe seems to have “pulled the shutters down, and they’ve made it very clear that all they see that I’ve done by breaking the story is a bad thing. They’ve been openly hostile … it seems that they don’t see the bigger picture – all they appear to care about is their own image and reputation.”