Daily Mirror

Telling Mirror about sex abuse hell turned my life around

PAUL STEWART BOOK ON HIS CHILD SEX ABUSE HELL

- By ENGLAND ACE PAUL STEWART

FORMER footballer Paul Stewart has told how lifting the lid on his secret sex abuse nightmare after 41 years helped him turn his life around.

The ex-England star bravely revealed for the first time in the Mirror last year how he had been targeted aged 11 by paedophile youth coach Frank Roper.

His interview triggered one of the biggest scandals to hit the national game.

Paul, 52, has now written a book, Damaged, about his horrific experience­s which is serialised in our paper this week.

In it he tells of his spiral into drug addiction and his visits to the scenes of abuse at desolate playing fields, car parks and training pitches where Roper, a coach with Manchester junior side Nova, took him to be alone. And he reveals he still has nightmares about the pervert.

He also talks of the devastatin­g effect his drug use had on wife Bev and their children Adam, 30, Chloe, 28, and Jade, 21.

Paul, of Blackpool – who has just launched the charity SAVE with other former stars to help victims of abuse – says: “In many ways, the interview with the Mirror was a turning point in my life.

“I wish now I had come forward much earlier, a long, long time ago. I do believe that first interview has helped me, though it is difficult for me to judge. Bev, my parents, my children have seen it.

“It feels like a weight has been lifted, a burden deep in my soul.

“Victims will know immediatel­y what I mean… you carry it, hidden away.”

But Paul told how he regrets not speaking out about his almost daily abuse, that went on for four years, a move he feels could have prevented pervert Roper going on to attack others.

He adds: “People use the words ‘brave’ and ‘courageous’ about my decision to disclose my past. But I still feel guilty in some respects. I can’t help thinking that had I been courageous when I was a young footballer and told my coach or manager, then I might have stopped Roper abusing countless others.

“I will live with that for the rest of my life.”

A stream of former players targeted by paedophile coaches contacted former Spurs and Liverpool player Paul after his Mirror interview. He has kept their identities secret to this day, and will never reveal them. One ex-Nova player called three hours after Paul went public. He told him: “The story has inspired me. I’m telling my mother for the first time.” He, like Paul, was a family man who had kept the secret for decades. He was not alone. By July, the soccer sex abuse inquiry, Operation Hydrant, had identified 741 victims and 276 potential suspects. The biggest scandal to rock the modern game covers 328 football clubs. Hundreds of calls offering new informatio­n came in after Paul appeared on a BBC Crimewatch special in April. The response was described as one of the biggest in the long history of the show.

Paul says: “I was shocked by the scale of this problem.

“I knew my abuser had abused others. But I did not expect the tsunami of cases. It was as enormous as it was tragic. I have spoken to so many people over the past 10 months in the same situation as me.

“I wanted to help them. That was the reason for coming forward. That’s why I have written the book.”

Paul launched SAVE with fellow victims and former Man City players David White and Ian Ackley and 80s Newcastle star Derek Bell in an effort to help others who have been abused.

His own help came from family members, including Bev, parents Bert, 78, and 77-year-old Joyce and brothers Anthony and Gary.

Paul tells how his wife accompanie­d him to a clinic in Blackpool when he first sought counsellin­g for drug addiction in his mid-40s.

Bev had to listen, for the first time, to details of his coke habit. She stood by him as he disappeare­d for days at a time on benders, when he sometimes ended up abroad. Paul tells how on the day he signed for Liverpool in a £2.5million deal he went on an ecstasy, coke and booze binge.

But he reveals the birth of Chloe’s

daughter Sienna – his and Bev’s first grandchild – in March has helped him to learn to love again.

He says: “It is my family, my loved ones, who saved me. In football, in the dressing room, I found a place where I belonged. I have that again, right where it always was; at home, with the little granddaugh­ter who is lighting up all our lives.”

Paul says he still suffers from depression and has suicidal thoughts, which have dogged him all his adult life, even at the peak of his career.

But rather than keep his problems secret, he now confides in Bev.

He adds: “The hardest part of the abuse is its impact on my family. It is my inability to say what I feel. It became apparent in doing the Mirror story just how much I had learned to block out all those memories.

“Depression can hit the richest and the poorest. It has no respect for money, or status.

“It is a mental illness that I suffered throughout my time at the top.

“Roper came back in nightmares. I shared how I was feeling with my wife.

“It was done in the form of a text, I wrote: ‘I don’t know what’s up with me, feel really low.’

“She is there for me. It shows that I have learned to share feelings.

“Like a soldier returning from war, you can be traumatise­d for a lifetime. Flashbacks may come back years later, you are back in that situation of danger, it is as real as it was before.” In the Mirror interview, Paul claimed Roper threatened to kill his parents and brothers if he ever told anyone about his sick attacks.

He said: “At 11 years old, you believe that. The mental scars led me into problems with drink and drugs. I know now it was a grooming process.

“The level of abuse got worse and worse. He was a monster.”

Roper died from prostate cancer at St Ann’s Hospice in Stockport, Gtr Manchester, on September 13, 2005. It meant he never faced justice.

But Paul added: “Bev was concerned that digging up the past might be too much, reliving that pain all over again. I reassured her: ‘It doesn’t matter that he’s dead. I buried him a long time ago.’” Despite his agony, Paul never lost the sense of humour that made him a popular figure in the dressing room.

Legends of the game, including Peter Reid, Niall Quinn and Chris Waddle have all come forward to pay tribute to him and the courage he has shown in speaking out.

He played alongside all-time greats such as Paul Gascoigne, Gary Lineker, John Barnes, and Ian Rush.

And he was guided in his career by top managers Terry Venables and the late Graham Taylor.

After his 1988 move from Man City to Tottenham for a record £1.9million, he lived with Gazza at the height of the Geordie star’s fame.

He rubbed shoulders with Elton John, Rod Stewart and George Michael and met Princess Diana.

Paul tells of Gazza asking “Where’s jug ears?” as he lined up to meet Prince Charles before the 91 FA Cup Final against Nottingham Forest, which Spurs won 2-1.

But the overriding message of the book is for anyone finding themselves in the horrendous position he was to not suffer in silence.

He says: “You are not alone. If you suffer as I suffered, seek help as soon as you can. Don’t keep it secret like I did for so many years. It is not easy. But you can pull through.”

Paul Stewart: Damaged, Trinity Mirror Sport Media, on sale September 7, from Amazon, sportmedia­shop.com and all good book shops, ebook available.

If you suffer as I have, seek help as soon as you can. Don’t keep it secret like I did for years PAUL OFFERS ADVICE TO ANYONE ELSE WHO IS A TARGET OF PAEDOPHILE­S

 ??  ??
 ??  ?? FAMILY With Adam, Bev, Chloe, baby Sienna and Jade, far right
FAMILY With Adam, Bev, Chloe, baby Sienna and Jade, far right
 ??  ?? FAVOURITE Player in action for Tottenham
FAVOURITE Player in action for Tottenham
 ??  ?? FIEND Roper preyed on young player
FIEND Roper preyed on young player
 ??  ?? AGONY SHARED Paul hopes book will help others
AGONY SHARED Paul hopes book will help others
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