Pushy dad’s ‘foul-mouthed rants’ at tennis daughters

A TENNIS coach who wanted his daughters to be Wimbledon champions bombarded them with foulmouthed notes criticising their performance, a court heard yesterday.

John De’Viana, 55, is accused of starving and beating daughters Monaei, 21, and Nephe, 19, during a decade of abuse as he pushed them towards stardom.

The former European karate champion revealed he got a psychological coach for his elder daughter when she was just six after becoming aware that ‘the fun element of her own success was waning’ after she had been playing tennis since the age of three.

He was giving evidence in his defence yesterday as it emerged he had scribbled foulmouthed notes during matches comparing his 11-year-old daughter Nephe to a ‘f ****** dog’ because she would ‘always play wrong’.

Snaresbrook Crown Court in east London heard that the fatherof-two wrote expletive-ridden notes on statistics sheets when his children were as young as nine. His daughters were considered among Britain’s most gifted youth players at the time, having starred in a promotional campaign for the Lawn Tennis Association with Sir Andy Murray.

But De’Viana, who denies child cruelty, was highly critical of their performance. When Nephe was 11, he wrote a critique of her performance in which he referred to her as a ‘f ****** idiot’ and said she had ‘turned to mush’.

‘I just don’t understand you, Nephe, why you don’t listen and why you have to argue, you just always play wrong,’ he wrote. ‘Idiot will not listen so lost match. It’s like a f ****** dog not knowing what to do.’

He also used foul language in a note written in January 2009 when Nephe was ten. Other expletives were used in notes about Monaei when she was 13 and 15.

De’Viana admitted that he recognised there was a ‘crossover line’ between coach and father, and said he brought in a psychological development coach after doing ‘a lot of research’ on children in tennis.

He said: ‘I felt that Monaei and I weren’t enjoying all the fun things that we used to do.

‘As a father and a coach there was a fine line and I was already struggling to stay on balance.’

De’Viana denied being a pushy parent. Tara Adkin QC, defending, asked: ‘Are you aware of the existence of some parents who would push young children beyond their ability and force them effectively to do sports?’ He replied: ‘I saw it and reported others.’

The jury heard De’Viana competed for Great Britain in karate and became European champion aged 17.

The defendant, who walks with the aid of a walking stick after he was injured in a traffic accident in 2012, said he took up tennis because he was ‘looking desperately to fill the gap’ when he gave up karate aged 27.

He denied making the girls train every day for 13 hours, adding: ‘A young girl of that age couldn’t possibly train every day.’

Earlier the court heard that both girls quit the sport after their parents split when they were teenagers. The girls’ mother Michelle Horne told the jury that De’Viana was controlling.

But Miss Adkin suggested she was lying about the allegations of cruelty in a bid to help her in a court battle concerning contact with their two children.

De’Viana, of Ilford, Essex, denies two counts of child cruelty.

The trial continues.