HOW THE STORY UNFOLDED
1994Barry Bennell, the former Crewe coach, was sentenced to four years in prison in the United States after pleading guilty to six counts of sexual assault, including the rape of a boy, while coaching Staffordshire side Stone Dominoes during their youth tour of Florida. 1997 Bennell was unmasked when he was the subject of a Channel 4 Dispatches programme. One victim, Ian Ackley, waived his right to anonymity to say he’d been repeatedly raped by Bennell. 1998 Bennell was found guilty at Chester Crown Court in 1998 of 23 offences against six boys, aged from nine to 15, and was sentenced to nine years in jail. 2001 Former Crewe director Hamilton Smith, who had concerns about the youth set-up at the club, said he he had asked the FA to carry out an investigation into the club’s care of children. Tony Pickering, the FA’s head of education and child protection at the time, replied that the FA had ‘investigated the issues and is satisfied that there is no case to answer’. 2015 Bennell was given a further sentence in 2015 when he pleaded guilty to sexually abusing another boy at a camp in Macclesfield in 1980. NOV 16 Former Bury and Sheffield United player Andy Woodward, 43, reveals that from the age of 11 he was subjected to four years of sexual assault by Barry Bennell while at Crewe Alexandra. NOV 22 Steve Walters, 44, who in 1988 became the club’s youngest debutant, also claims he was sexually abused by Bennell while at Crewe. NOV 23 Former England and Tottenham footballer Paul Stewart, 52, breaks his silence, claiming he was sexually abused as a youth player. Stewart, who began his professional career with Blackpool and also played for Manchester City and Liverpool, claims that an unnamed coach — not Bennell — abused him daily for four years. Former Manchester City striker David White, 49, alleges he was also sexually abused by Bennell in the late 1970s and early 1980s, while playing for Whitehill FC junior team in Manchester.
NOV 24The NSPCC says a hotline set up in the wake of the revelations receives more than 50 calls in the first two hours. Four police forces are now investigating allegations of historical child sex abuse in football. NOV 24 The police force in Northumberland say they have received a complaint from a former Newcastle United player, claiming he was abused by George Ormond, a man who has already had a six-year prison sentence for a string of convictions involving boys from the club’s youth system over a 24-year period. The allegations were understood to relate to Ormond’s time prior to his spell in charge of Newcastle United’s youth team, which were among the offences he was convicted of in 2002.
NOV 25Two other footballers, Jason Dunford and Chris Unsworth, neither of whom turned professional, say they were abused by Bennell as youth players at Crewe.