I thought if I wanted to be a footballer this is what I had to do

A POLICE officer has revealed he suffered sexual abuse as a boy at the hands of his junior football coach.

Mike Smith bravely opened up about his ordeal, which began when he was just nine years old and continued for six years.

When he found the courage to reveal what had happened to him, he said those he first told did not want to face the truth.

As he grew up he sank into depression, became diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, and by the age of 40 had suffered a heart attack.

The 42-year-old, a community beat manager for North Wales Police, said: “In 1984 we moved to Ireland after my parents split up. My mum is Irish and we used to go over every summer. I played for a local team when I went over there.

“When we moved I joined the team and he (the coach) would mess about, play-fighting in the car and making out it was an accident if he touched my private parts.”

PC Smith told how the “play-fighting” graduated to more serious abuse, as he was forced to perform sex acts on the coach. “I just thought if I want to be a footballer this is what I have to do,” he said. “I felt scared of him and my dreams of professional football would be ripped away if I told anyone.”

After two years the abuse was taken to a horrifying new level when the coach raped him repeatedly, often twice a week. PC Smith added: “He took me to Wembley to the FA Cup Final between Liverpool and Wimbledon in 1988. I remember we were stopping at the Regent’s Palace Hotel in Piccadilly Circus.

“That was a night it happened repeatedly – five or six times. I remember being really shaken up by it and I said to myself, he’s obviously not looking out for me. I was in pain and crying. I had hit 14 and had a bit more knowledge. I fought back after that but it continued.”

Then, aged 15, he finally summoned up the courage to tell his sports teacher at school – but didn’t get the reaction he had hoped for.

“I must have filled the pad with my story. I was crying my eyes out doing it. But he took it and ripped it up. I went to pieces then, but I thought ‘I’ve done it once’ – it was a massive sense of relief.”

PC Smith was not deterred and wrote a letter to his mum that night cataloguing the abuse, and left it for her to read.

When he returned home the police were wait- ing for him to tell his story. The coach was prosecuted in 1990, but PC Smith was too ashamed to mention the rapes and his abuser was given a two-year suspended sentence and bound over for three years for the offences PC Smith had felt capable of revealing.

PC Smith now trains football youngsters in his spare time and was crowned 2016 FAW Community Coach of the Year.

He wants to be an ambassador for the Offside Trust in Wales and help others overcome the stigma and trauma of childhood abuse at the hands of adults.

“Even if just one more person comes out and says ‘this happened to me’, it would be worth it,” he said.

Praising PC Smith, Steve Walters, former Crewe Alexandra and Rhyl player and founder member of the Offside Trust, said. “It’s the hardest decision of your life to come forward and say something. It’s also the most important decision.”