Helping victims and safeguarding future

DAVID WHITE has come full circle from abused child to helping child abuse victims.

Along with former City team-mate Paul Stewart and ex-players Derek Bell and Ian Ackley, also victims, he has set up SAVE Association – which stands for Safeguarding and Victim Engagement – to help fellow victims of child abuse.

White said: “We have all gone through the different levels of safeguarding training up to the point where we can train safeguarding ourselves. Anyone who works with children has got to do a degree of safeguarding training but in the main SAVE is going to be training other survivors of any type of abuse suffered in any setting, but mainly child abuse.

“We are developing a survivor-led safeguarding network of individuals empowering them to become part of the safeguarding solution.”

Through their work, the quartet have provided enormous friendship and support for each other. “Paul and I were team-mates at City for 16 months in the late Eighties but we had no idea each other had been victims of child abuse,” he added. “Now I rarely go through a day without speaking to him.”

As for Barry Bennell, who was sentenced to 30 years in prison in February after being convicted of numerous child abuse charges, White said: “He is where he should be. I absolutely think he is still a danger. Was the trial closure? I’ve been lucky in that it has never affected me in the sense I felt suicidal or needed to turn to drink or drugs. In fact, I got to a point where I wasn’t bothered whether the guy was dead or alive, in prison or not.

“But I’m glad he is inside. In court, he showed no respect or remorse. He made no apology. In fact he was quite arrogant about it.”

For more information about SAVE go to www.saveassociation.com or telephone 0330 043 0401.