‘Child Catcher’ soccer coach guilty of sex attacks on young boys
PAEDOPHILE football coach Barry Bennell was yesterday found guilty of multiple sex offences against young boys who dreamed of soccer stardom.
The 64-year-old, a former scout at Manchester City, molested youngsters in his car, at his home and on football tours in the 1980s.
Described as a child abuser on an ‘industrial scale’, he was yesterday found guilty of 36 charges against ten victims, including 27 indecent assaults and nine serious sexual assaults, which under today’s laws would be described as rape or attempted rape.
Liverpool Crown Court heard that four youngsters coached by Bennell, including
‘Predatory and determined’
former Wales manager Gary Speed, had taken their own lives in adulthood. Father-of-two Speed was found hanged at his £2million home in 2011 aged 42.
There was no evidence to link the deaths to Bennell, the jury were told.
Parents were charmed by Bennell, who was also a youth coach at Crewe Alexandra FC, into letting their sons stay overnight at his home before matches on the pretence that he was helping them prepare for games.
His home, on the edge of the Peak District, was described as a ‘children’s paradise’ by victims – full of arcade games, a pool table and exotic pets, including a monkey and a puma.
But the coach, who was compared in the trial to the evil Child Catcher character in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, was luring the children into his double bed, where he abused them – sometimes hundreds of times.
Bennell, also known as Richard Jones, is a convicted paedophile who has already served three prison sentences totalling 15 years for abusing 17 different boys in England and America.
Yesterday a jury found him guilty of sexually abusing young boys a fourth time, including boys as young as eight and one England schoolboy player.
Many of the victims sobbed in the public gallery as the foreman delivered the guilty verdicts. Nicholas Johnson, QC, prosecuting, said: ‘ Barry Bennell… had pretty much unfettered access to large numbers of young lads who dreamt of life in professional football. Although it seems that Mr Bennell was a skilled and relatively successful coach, he had a much darker side.
‘He was also a predatory and determined paedophile.’
Bennell, of no fixed address, groomed the children by buying them sports kits, takeaway food and treats. He would begin the abuse, which occurred between 1979 and 1990, by play-fighting or tickling, before touching the boys’ private parts.
He would also terrify the boys into needing ‘comfort’ or cuddles by making them watch horror films in the dark before bedtime. On other occasions he would frighten them by leaving a sheep’s head in their bunks.
Most of his victims had no idea what was happening to them and were too frightened to complain, but occasionally when confronted Bennell threatened to destroy their footballing prospects.
At the start of the latest trial, he admitted seven counts of indecent assault.
He was later cleared of a further three and the jury are deliberating seven other offences.
Bennell, who chose not to give evidence in his defence, denied the charges, claiming his victims were ‘jumping on the band wagon’ to claim compensation.