Reform ‘25’s Empty Promise
An anonymous G4C member responds to the release of BG’s Reform ‘25 and their promise to publish a register of banned coaches with “zero tolerance of abuse”.
On Tuesday 18th October 2022, with great fanfare and attracting national press coverage, BG released their response to the Whyte Review; Reform ‘25. But scratch beneath the veneer of the positive headlines and one quickly hits some disappointing empty promises.
To understand the truth of the hollow headlines we need to go back to July 2022, when radio & TV presenter Nicky Campbell, spoke movingly to campaigning journalist Alex Renton about being physically abused and witnessing the sexual abuse of his peers by teachers at his boarding school in the 1970’s. Worryingly, a specific abusive teacher, ‘Edgar’, had continued to work in educational establishments after leaving Campbell’s school, despite the school being under a cloud of abuse allegations.
I was particularly affected by this story because my family has experience of something similar. My child was physically and emotionally abused by their gymnastics coach.
I brought this to the attention of the National Governing Board - British Gymnastics. The coach was formally suspended, during which time there was an investigation and disciplinary procedures, resulting eventually in the coach being sanctioned.
Imagine the shock then, on scrolling through social media during the period of the coach’s formal suspension, to find this coach still working as a sports coach in UK based schools and abroad with foreign clubs.
Like Nicky Campbell, my reaction was an emotional one. You can’t quite believe that, despite making serious allegations, ‘the system’ would let you down and you are flabbergasted to learn that the legislative framework for the protection of children is not effective.
Tom Perry of Mandate Now, a pressure group campaigning for the introduction of Mandatory Reporting of child sexual abuse in regulated activities as an essential component in safeguarding, has called the existing child protection legislative set-up a confused mixture with ‘hollowed capability’, usefully serving no one.
The story of gymnastics coaches still coaching, despite sanctions or investigations into their alleged abusive behaviours - therefore isn’t an unusual one. But how is it, that despite being suspended or under investigation these sports coaches, and others, can still pursue their metier and put other children at risk of harm?
Here is the unpleasant truth: historically, organisations have been more concerned with limiting damage to their reputation and revenue than the safeguarding of minors.
What exactly does ‘suspension’ mean?
Earlier this year, I learnt that for British Gymnastics (BG) a suspension is ‘a neutral act and does not imply a belief of guilt or innocence of any party, but is intended to ensure that the investigation can happen appropriately...’
This is important because as The Whyte Review (June 2022) made clear, whatever the specific wording, for the coach in question, an interim suspension can be a ‘very traumatic experience’ and it’s ‘impact….devastating on a professional and personal level’. Notwithstanding the potentially negative impact on coaches, suspensions (interim or used as a sanction), in many working contexts are important tools in any organisation’s disciplinary processes.
Conversely, from the complainants perspective, it’s not exactly clear at what stage in a BG complaint process a suspension might be considered appropriate; nor whether it is a tool that only the NGB can use or if as a tool, it’s also available to BG clubs? Moreover, in the case of BG registered coaches, a suspension, from the perspective of the complainant, is in theory intended to offer protection for gymnasts from harm by imposing a clear restriction - or pause from coaching - on the coach.
As the parent of a child abused by their coach, I therefore believe strongly that BG’s current explanation about the purpose of a suspension is confused and needs clarifying. Furthermore, I believe those in the gymnastics community affected by abusive coaching practices deserve and have a right to know about any sanction, suspension or barring of a coach within the wider gymnastics community. Yet, BG say suspensions and sanctions are currently communicated on ‘a need-to-know basis’ only, and as such a suspended or sanctioned coach is not necessarily precluded from coaching, were they to move on away from clear oversight or governance (to an non BG registered club, a school, another country, or a club run by someone who supports the coach and doesn’t respect the sanction).
The lack of a BG administered register of banned and sanction coaches (with coaching restrictions) and an ‘obligation of confidentiality’ on all parties, therefore represents a system firmly slanted towards the NGB and the coach - NOT the complainant or those at risk of possible future harm.
This is clear in the case of Andrew Griffiths as reported by BBC in June 2022. BG had accepted liability in a civil claim for his abuse against a former child gymnast of his at a West London club; yet we learnt that following BG accepting full liability for the coach’s abusive coaching, the coach in question had ‘resigned’ or ‘cancelled’ his BG membership as a coach (and was not therefore banned) and he was instead then able to work in a new role as a choreographer at a different club in the Southwest of England. Until the publicity of this case, his history and status wasn’t widely known.
Putting to one side the question of the club’s moral conduct in choosing to employ a coach involved in a successful civil claim for abusive coaching, the club might argue it was just exploiting a legitimate loophole in the safeguarding framework of BG*. And what this case therefore shows is, BG’s safeguarding procedures and absence of information on sanctioned coaches amounts to a hotchpotch mess that allows alleged abusive coaches to move clubs not only within the British Gymnastics system, but from the British Gymnastics system to schools, other sports clubs or abroad, with no one the wiser as to their history.
Since Summer 2020 when allegations of gymnastics abuse made media headlines prompting The Whyte Review, BG personnel have made promises to the gymnastics community to better engage with them. Yet some of the calls for action to stop coaches from coaching during suspension or circumventing sanctions by ‘retiring’, ‘resigning’ or ‘walking away’ would appear, to date, to have fallen on deaf ears.
Some suggestions to tackle this have included:
• a public register of banned & sanctioned coaches & coaches under investigation (similar exists in USA and in other UK sports bodies like the one administered by UKAthletics)
• reporting of outcomes of independent investigations
• formal referrals or informal case conference discussions with The Barring Service (DBS) when a coach is suspended
• better liaison with statutory agencies including LADO and the police so there is an understanding of what abuse in a sports setting looks like
• the NGB having greater scrutiny of how each club interprets ‘safer recruitment’ policies including the weight given to testimonials of character
• calls to start meaningful discussions with campaigning/pressure groups like Mandate Now (mandatory reporting)
• tougher penalties for child cruelty through ‘Tony’s Law’ to bring about change in laws governing child protection and safeguarding generally.
I was interested to learn more about BG’s action plan to reform the sport entitled Reform’25 published this week, in response to the findings in and recommendations of The Whyte Review. And I was buoyed to read the two main headline most of the press and media carried about the document - “Banned coaches to be named” & “BG to take ‘zero tolerance’ on abuse” and similar.
However, in interviews with Sarah Powell CEO British Gymnastics, journalists teased out that there would be limitations to this register - it would not be a retrospective list featuring historic cases; nor would it feature names of coaches suspended or currently under investigation. To say I feel disappointed and frustrated is therefore a major understatement. In fact given the emotional toll the abuse-reporting process has taken on me and my family, I feel incensed.
A list of banned coaches is close to meaningless, not least because obtaining a ban for a coach is so difficult to come by and can take up to 12 years to secure. No, it is a list of sanctioned coaches that matters to parents like me from across the gymnastics community. What we want to know is, of the coaches out there coaching in the clubs today, who and how many have been reported, investigated and sanctioned? I want to be able to make an informed decision about the person coaching my child. After all, if they have been sanctioned in the past, do I really want them coaching my child in the future? In the least, I’d like to have the option to be able to check a register - and give due diligence to the safeguarding of my child. Let’s call this ‘informed choice’. As far as Reform’25 goes, announcing a register of sanctioned coaches would have been seen as a great step for BG in regaining our trust.
And to be clear, a register of sanction & banned coaches would NOT be about a public naming and shaming of coaches. Instead, to my mind, it would be a necessary pre-requisite for modern, functioning safeguarding and child protection in sport, to stop abusive coaches moving around to other gymnastic clubs or indeed other sports or countries.
An Empty Promise
Sarah Powell’s announcement in Reform ‘25 of a register of banned coaches therefore looks flawed in its current format. Whilst I accept Reform ’25 is a work in progress, I would have hoped for more in respect of sanctioned coaches. Instead it looks to be an empty promise because BG cannot currently deliver on it in a form that would be useful or acceptable to myself and others in the Gymnastics Community. I for one hope Sarah Powell and the BG Board will reconsider their legal position on this.
I don’t pretend to know about the legally complex area of sports coaches, safeguarding & privacy. I can only write based on my own family’s experience of abuse and our desire for others to not be harmed by our child’s abuser. As such, what I can tell you is that it causes real anger when the system invalidates your personal story by not taking child protection as seriously as it should. When only those who ‘need to know’ are aware of who the coaches are that have been sanctioned or suspended, and when so many coaches reported to Anne Whyte remain in the system, how can BG give a cast iron guarantee they are taking a zero tolerance on abuse?
Like Nicky Campbell, my family & I once again have been left as victims, to be the ones to call for accountability and justice to prevent the reoffending of alleged abusive sports coaches and teachers. It’s time to end the culture of coaches walking out of a back door of one club and through the front door of YOUR local gymnastics club and Reform ‘25 has someway yet to go in delivering on its headline promises.
Anonymous.
*Sarah Powell in media interviews on Reform’25 has said she intends that this loophole will be closed in the coming months so that BG membership is required for ancillary roles in gymnastics like choreographers, physios and sports masseurs.