A bitter break-up, a gross web of lies’, and a tennis dad cleared of cruelty to his girls
TENNIS coach John De’Viana was yesterday cleared of allegations of abuse against his two daughters in his bid to make them Wimbledon champions. IT took a jury less than 90 minutes to dismiss the two counts of cruelty to a person under 16. Following the trial, he said he ‘will always love’ his daughters, 21-year-old Monaei and Nephe, 19, and hopes for a reconciliation. He also told how a bitter break up from the girls’ mother saw his relationship with his daughters fall to pieces. Here we look at a family at war. SISTERS Monaei and Nephe De’Viana were just seven and five when they were first tipped to become Britain’s answer to Venus and Serena Williams.
Coached by their ambitious father John, a former European karate champion, they seemed destined for the big time almost as soon as they could walk. Monaei was just ten months old when she was given a toy wooden bat and sponge ball. At three she was knocking balls with her Dad in the garden or park every day. At five she held her first proper racquet.
Just two years later, De’Viana was promising to deliver a ‘future grand slam winner’ and confidently predicted in a newspaper interview that Monaei would be ‘the best in the world’.
When Nephe too showed an ‘exceptional’ talent, the siblings seemed destined for Wimbledon’s Centre Court.
As far back as 2002, De’Viana was making no apology for hoping their natural athleticism would propel both girls to the top. ‘I know a lot of people will think I’m one of those pushy parents,’ he said, ‘but they cannot hold me back.’
Comparisons with the Williams sisters’ tennis coach father, Richard, who steered his daughters to 30 Grand Slam singles titles, inevitably followed. Nephe became a poster girl for the Lawn Tennis Association, and was photographed with Sir Andy Murray. She was invited to train with Maria Sharapova and Caroline Wozniacki.
‘Nephe was super-talented,’ says her father, who swells with pride at the memory. ‘Everybody wanted her. Sponsors were clamouring around us.’
And then the script veered horribly off course. Today Monaei, 21, and Nephe, 19, no longer play tennis. They profess to hate the game. The bond between father and daughters lies irrevocably broken.
For this compelling narrative did not lead to SW19, but rather Snaresbrook Crown Court, E11, where De’Viana, 54, was yesterday cleared of two counts of cruelty to a person under 16.
He looked close to tears as his daughters claimed he’d turned into a pushy sports Dad from hell, who cared only about winning.
And he sobbed as the jury took less than 90 minutes to dismiss his daughters’ allegations, which he claimed were gross exaggerations and lies, made out of spite after he left their mother in 2011 – accusing her of infidelity.
Their allegations of physical and emotional abuse could not have been more hurtful for a father who’d invested his time, energy and what little money he had in developing their talent.
The sisters spoke of being forced to train for up to seven hours a day, starved and kicked, slapped and spat at when they failed to live up to their ‘tyrannical’ father’s expectations. Monaei, once ranked number five in the UK, claimed he’d once written ‘L’ for loser on her forehead in permanent marker and called them ‘Lazy c*** or lazy bitch’, ‘dumbass’ and ‘w***** idiots’ if they did not perform well. Nephe claimed he’d attacked her behind a curtain in a sports centre when she was 12, holding his hand over her mouth to muffle her screams.
When she’d received a new tennis bag from sponsors, she alleged her father said ‘she had not earned that’, forcing her to carry her kit in a bin liner to humiliate her.
They said they were relieved when their parents split up when they were 15 and 13, allowing them to quit the sport.
The girls’ mother Michelle Horne, 41, told jurors that her ex-partner told their daughters that if they quit tennis they’d be ‘working in Tesco’s forever’. She claimed she only became aware of their daughters’ allegations of physical abuse after De’Viana left her.
De’Viana denied all the charges. He claimed his daughters, upset over his departure, had fabricated the cruel allegations out of spite.
‘I didn’t give them the courtesy of an explanation when I left, they are not feeling too good towards me,’ he told jurors.
‘I can only assume they are pretty upset with me as a father ... They didn’t understand what was going on.’ Miss Horne, the court heard, had ‘re-written’ history, motivated by revenge when De’Viana refused to reconcile, falsely painting him as ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ character.
‘The way to hurt that man is not simply to take away his daughters, but his reputation,’ said Tara Adkin QC, defending.
For the Mail can reveal the De’Vianas’ family life descended into bitterness post break-up, with neighbours talking of upsetting scenes and police cars.
Expletive-ridden coaching notes he had written were found in the family home after his departure, which were read out in court. One, about Monaei read: ‘F****** useless serving, no f****** discipline, f****** s*** and you lost two f****** games. No idea.’ In another he wrote: ‘Nephe is like a f****** dog being told what to do.’ De’Viana said he’d simply been privately venting his frustration in the heat of the moment and had ‘never’ shown the notes to the girls. He said he loved them and only ever wanted the best for them.
Defence witnesses said they had never seen or heard anything untoward in all the years they’d worked with the family.
Five times world karate champion and sports development consultant Geoff Thompson MBE described De’Viana as a ‘unique’ coach whose ‘passive’ style brought out the best in children. Mr Thompson, whose two sons were also coached by De’Viana, said it was ‘impossible’ for him to have hit or verbally abused his daughters during training without someone noticing. But the story of the superstar
‘Kicked, slapped and spat at’ ‘Their mother has re-written history’
sisters who never made it must surely serve as a warning to all sports parents.
The son of a Hindu mother and Portuguese father, John De’Viana turned to sport as a response to the bullying and racism he said he encountered growing up in East London. With little support from his parents, he was a self-starter who excelled at karate, representing Great Britain at the age of 11. At 17 he was European champion.
Leaving school at 16, he worked in a factory and shops to support his sporting ambitions. Retiring from karate at 27, he took up tennis to ‘fill the gap’ and loved it. After Monaei was born, he noticed her ‘goto toy’ was a wooden bat and ball. Soon she graduated to a racquet, and he’d lob sponge balls to her in the garden of their Cambridge home.
‘She enjoyed it and looked forward to playing with me because it was fun,’ he said ‘She never said she didn’t want to play tennis and if she had I would have happily moved on to something else.’
Everyone agreed she was very good for someone so young. Hoping to develop her potential, De’Viana started coaching Monaei on the courts at her primary school. At six when De’Viana started taking her to Redbridge Sports Centre in Ilford, Essex where the LTA runs the Performance Tennis Programme. They later moved to be near the centre.
At seven the LTA agreed to see her to assess her abilities and eligibility for funding. ‘They were visibly surprised at how well she could play,’ De’Viana said. ‘Especially coming from nowhere, no academy, no club.’ A £5,000 package was agreed. This later went up to £40,000 a year for both girls, after Nephe was also found to be ‘exceptional’.
De’Viana drew up tailor-made exercise programmes for the girls, who were home- schooled, while their mother looked after nutrition and
‘She never said she didn’t want to play’
emotional support. He enlisted a psychologist and two coaches to give them an the edge over opponents.
De’Viana claimed Miss Horne’s attitude was ‘exactly the same as mine, trying to do the best we possibly could in whatever [Monaei] chose. You cannot force a child to play a particular sport’.
Even so, there were times he worried over the conflicting roles he played in his daughters’ lives.
Of Monaei, he said: ‘I was her father and coach and there was a fine line. I was struggling to stay on balance. I recognised that things had started to become serious and that the onus was on winning. I felt that Monaei and I were not enjoying all the fun things we used to.
‘I love my children, but in their eyes I was the coach and Michelle was the parent.
‘I’m sure they heard me swearing on court when certain things happened, as most parents do.’
Dr Chris Harwood, professor of sports psychology at Loughborough University, believes it is not always helpful to a child’s development when their parent is their coach. ‘Both roles have clearly different sets of expectations,’ he said. He added that problems occur when parents become ‘over-involved’ and start treating their children like mini-adults. De’Viana insisted he was never that kind of parent.
Monaei and Nephe declined to comments, as did Miss Horne. The LTA would not comment on the case, saying only: ‘The LTA takes the safety and spirit of tennis very seriously, especially when children are concerned.’
Sadly the De’Viana sisters never became Britain’s answer to Venus and Serena Williams. The dream ended in misery and recrimination.
But had things been different, what poster girls they could have been for the next generation of future female stars.