We call for the introduction of well-designed statutory legislation to introduce mandatory reporting of known and suspected child sexual abuse. This key legislation already exists in the majority of European jurisdictions but does not yet exist in the UK. It would apply to coaches, sports staff and others working in what are defined as ‘regulated activities’ and would provide legal protection for the mandated reporters. To accompany mandatory reporting, we also ask for a comprehensive collection of data relating to child sexual abuse referrals and outcomes. There is currently no database in the UK that contains this vital information.

In her 2022 report Anne Whyte QC recommended the introduction of a Sports Ombudsman for the UK. Gymnasts for Change supports the creation of such a body as the Whyte Review clearly demonstrates the extent to which sport is not capable of policing itself. Importantly, Whyte’s call for an ombudsman echoes the findings of Tanni Grey Thompson’s 2016 ‘Duty of Care in Sport’ report. A sports ombudsman will make it easier for British gymnasts and UK athletes to seek redress and help ensure that our sporting institutions properly protect the athletes they serve. The British Government must commit to learning from countries where a Sports Ombudsman already exists, to create structures and reporting processes that will bring greater oversight, accountability and justice to athletes.

The government has a moral responsibility to recognise the training hours of elite child athletes as ‘child labour’. Children and young athletes require special protection from abuse and from injuries and illness resulting from sport, including mental well-being. It’s time the government moved to offer elite child athletes the same legal protection and working conditions afforded to child actors on set and stage. Read more about the need for changes to child labour laws here.

To date, as campaigners we have done everything we can to report abusive coaches to police. Only in one case has it been possible to bring a charge of child cruelty. Lack of legislative protections for children in sport has been coupled with a failure on the part of the police to recognise how abuse shows up in sport. Athlete abuse in gymnastics must now be understood in the wider context of violence against women and girls and it is essential that Anne Whyte’s report be considered in tandem with former HM Inspector of Constabulary Zoe Billingham’s report on this issue. It is time that the British Government recognise the need to create functioning safeguarding laws that are appropriate to child protection process, beyond those of child-parent relations in the home.

The Disclosure and Barring Service must be turned into a competent prosecuting authority; to date no sports clubs or National Governing Bodies have been prosecuted for failing to return prescribed referrals. Prescribed referrals are specifically designed to reduce the likelihood of adults who are a risk to children - securing future work in similar settings elsewhere. Clubs and perhaps even Governing Bodies must be held to account for any failure to return these important statutory documents.

A democratic accreditation body must be established to ensure sport receives well-structured and correct training designed to raise standards of safeguarding in sport. Safeguarding training for all staff in sports settings is currently provided by multiple individuals and companies, none of which are accredited and there is no accreditation scheme for training providers.

Local authority children’s protection services appear to have little understanding of physical and emotional abuse within sport settings and specifically within gymnastics. We have heard of cases where they the Local Authority Designated Officers (LADO) dismiss abuse claims as ‘par for the course’ or part of a ‘no pain, no gain’ ethos. Many gymnasts and parents have tried reporting coaches to LADOs only to be told ‘please take this to the police’, then when the police say ‘this does not meet the primal threshold’ the LADO will refer the complaint back to British Gymnastics, the same body who failed to investigate the complaint in the first place. We therefore need a nationally-accredited training scheme for LADOs, who are a key safeguarding link for sports organisations across the UK.

Coercive Control legislation must be extended to allow sports coaches to be prosecuted for the following types of behaviour: Isolating a person from their friends and family, depriving them of their basic needs, monitoring their time, taking control over aspects of their everyday life, such as where they can go, who they can see, what to wear and when they can sleep, depriving them access to support services, such as specialist support or medical services, repeatedly putting them down such as telling them they are worthless, enforcing rules and activity which humiliate, degrade or dehumanise the victim, neglect or abuse of children to encourage self-blame and prevent disclosure to authorities, financial abuse, controlling a persons ability to go to school or place of study, taking wages, benefits or allowance, threats to hurt or kill, threats to harm a child, assault, preventing a person from being able to attend school, college or University, limiting access to family, friends and finances.

Gymnasts across the UK who have previously made complaints to British Gymnastics without satisfactory resolution are understandably angry. The Whyte Review shows that they were right not to have faith in BG’s ability to competently handle complaints. We therefore call on Christopher Quinlan QC to open up the Independent strand of the Independent Complaints process and accept applications from any gymnast who does not want their case to be handled directly by BG.

Gymnasts for Change have faith in Sports Resolutions’ ability to deliver impartial, properly investigated complaint processes. We call on British Gymnastics to allow Sports Resolutions representatives to sit on all future hearing panels, until such time that Sports resolutions are satisfied of British Gymnastics procedures, competency levels and consistency in case handling.

British Gymnastics must create a public register of sanctioned coaches (as UK Athletics have done) and provide a public statement on their plans to remove abusive coaches from the sport. At a minimum, all coaches in both strands of the ICP should be suspended with immediate effect. The Whyte report revealed that many complaints regarding abusive coaches have been ‘lost’ with extensive amounts of paper work ‘missing’. There is currently therefore no way to ensure gymnasts are safe, or for parents to even know if their child’s coach has been sanctioned multiple times by the National Governing Body.

British Gymnastics Welfare Officers must change their practices of not speaking directly to children as witnesses in their own cases. It’s clear from the Whyte Review that British Gymnastic’s procedures for dealing with child victims are inadequate and the Integrity department must now move to employ trauma and paediatric specialists to help shape future procedures. As part of a restorative and reconciliatory process, Gymnasts for Change also request that athlete survivors be placed at the heart of shaping new procedures for complaint handling. In particular, as a campaign group we wish to be included in providing training to all safeguarding officers employed by British Gymnastics regarding the nuanced forms of abuse in gymnastics that have been identified by leading researchers around the world. The lived experiences of survivors must be considered a valuable resource to the organisation and such training would represent an import part of the process of restorative justice.

British Gymnastics must make it clear that they will no longer turn a blind eye to inappropriate relationships between coaches and athletes. Under no circumstances should elite child athletes be living with their coaches, a practice that has been worryingly common for far too long. It is a damaging set-up that promotes harmful power dynamics and co-dependency on the unhealthiest of scales. From July 28th 2022 the Position of Trust Law will be extended to 16 & 17 year olds, which will bring greater protections to athletes, but British Gymnastics must go further and commit to upholding a moral stance, suspending any coach to be found in a sexual relationship with an athlete they coach - no matter what their age.

British Gymnastics must introduce maximum training hours for athletes under the age of 18. It’s not uncommon for girls under ten to train upwards of 20 hours a week, quickly rising to 30 hours a week after the age of ten. Such early specialisation and high training volumes isolate children and adolescents from friends and family - leaving elite child athletes vulnerable to coercion and abuse.

75% of all British Gymnastics members are under the age of 12. Parents are therefore the majority stakeholders within British Gymnastics, yet to date they remain excluded from the organisation’s newly established advocacy groups. British Gymnastics must now commit to establishing a Parent Advisory Group and include the parent’s of athlete survivors who have important knowledge to share regarding how the organisation’s safeguarding functions have consistently failed over decades.

British Gymnastics must sit with the findings of the Whyte Review before specifically identifying what went wrong, what they have allowed to happen and publicly apologising for their failings. Leaders must accurately describe what took place without minimising events or using generalisations that cover up the scale of the institutional betrayal. Correct words must be placed against the reality of the events and the truth of what has been revealed in the Whyte Review. British Gymnastics must acknowledge that what happened was wrong and that it was abuse.

British Gymnastics must show the gymnastics community in the UK that there are consequences for those who have employed and continue to employ abusive coaching practices. There must also be consequences for those complicit in the system who have enabled, covered up or ignored the abuse. The burden of blame must be moved by British Gymnastics from the victims to the perpetrators. An organisation that does not care enough to create consequences for abuse, does not care enough to prevent abuse from happening in the future. Such a system silences athlete survivors and communicates to victims that they are not safe and they don’t matter. It also communicates to abusers that they are free to continue using abusive coaching techniques with impunity.

Once a full and proper apology has been made, and the apology accepted by the community, British Gymnastics must ask how they can make amends. They must ask with openness ‘what do we need to do to make this right?’. They must acknowledge that therapy and medical treatments are not cheap and provide financial compensation to allow athletes to seeks the treatment they need. They must demonstrate to survivors that they will be cared for and that their voices matter. This must be done by placing athlete survivors at the heart of the process of shaping a new future for gymnastics in the UK.