4,000 MAN HOURS AND £1m . . . CITY TRY TO SOLVE THE BENNELL PUZZLE
The pictures of his teams were on the wall. he came and went as he pleased at Maine Road and the Platt Lane training ground. Yet Barry Bennell was not on the staff at Manchester City, he did not draw a regular wage. he worked for expenses and maybe a little extra to keep him sweet as a maker of stars.
Yet all around the swirl of gossip and innuendo grew. Piecing together how such a man infiltrated a major football club so devastatingly has now cost Manchester City’s investigators 4,000 hours and more than £1million.
Those figures will continue to mount, and no ceiling is in place. Manchester City’s investigation team is headed by Julian DiazRainey, a partner at Manchester legal firm Pinsent Masons, and a veteran of public inquiries. he worked on stage one of the harold Shipman inquiry and later on the Baha Mousa and Al- Sweady inquiries into the conduct of British soldiers in Iraq. The investigation reports to Jane Mulcahy, QC, of Blackstone Chambers in London.
If City are plotting a cover-up, as is often claimed, this seems a strange way to go about it.
Some of the relatives of Shipman’s victims gave surprising evidence. Despite a death toll that police believe could have reached 250, they spoke highly of his wider qualities as a GP. Some said he was the best doctor their family ever had.
Baennell’s manipulation of his victims and those around them was similarly effective. Given what is now known, his success at inveigling his way through Manchester City’s doors is not entirely surprising. One victim told investigators that, despite all that happened, Bennell was the best youth coach he had known. he still used some of his old coaching drills with the teams he ran. Bennell, he said, was that good.
Certainly, Bennell was no anonymous face in the crowd. he drove fast cars, liked to be known as Bene — pronounced with the same emphasis as Pele — and kept a menagerie, including a puma that roamed loose around his house.
he impressed the kids with ball juggling tricks, long before the art was called free- styling. And he was so well in at Manchester City that he could, if he wished, open the club up in the morning and close it down at night.
Yet when City’s executives sat down to first consider Bennell, they were staring at a largely blank page. Information was scarce. That was on november 28, 2016, the day after the Abu Dhabi Grand Prix, an annual vehicle for one of the club’s board meetings.
This one took place 12 days after one of Bennell’s ‘favourites’, Andy Woodward, had broken cover to tell of the abuse he had suffered over a number of years. Photographs had emerged of Bennell and his young players in Manchester City kit. Later employed by Crewe, Bennell had boasted in a programme article of previously being ‘seven years at Manchester City’. There appeared to be, at the very least, a strong connection.
An internal investigation and discussions were already under way but, that day in Abu Dhabi, chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak helped set the parameters for the full exposé. he didn’t want to hear what the investigators might think he wanted to hear; he wanted to hear the whole truth, about City and Bennell.
now, 15 months later, that truth is becoming clearer. Yet it remains far from complete. One of the investigation team described it as like a jigsaw puzzle, with all the edges and corners filled, but holes in the middle.
Manchester City have moved stadiums once, training grounds on several occasions, a lot of old records have been destroyed, lost or never existed in the first place. Despite winning titles and trophies in europe, City’s infrastructure remained stuck in the past.
Right up until Sheik Mansour’s takeover in 2008, the club did not have a human resources department, or a modern grievance system. Part of Pinsent’s job has been to map a list of staff, with chains of command, from 1968 to 1984. Using this, and gathered evidence, they seek an answer to a terrible question: who knew?
For a modern club in a time of safeguarding, dealing with an archaic system, that is the greatest mystery of all. how could this happen? how could it have been prevented? Could anyone have stopped Bennell and, if so, why did they not?
City hope to gather more information from the victims and their families, some of whom have yet to come forward. During evidence at Liverpool Crown Court it was alleged that two figures at Manchester City were informed of Bennell’s depravity, but frustratingly this bald statement was not examined further.
City have interviewed staff from the era, from groundsmen to coaches, but seek more detail. There is no question of even an interim report being published until victims have been afforded every chance to tell their side.
Many are still reluctant to speak, for a variety of reasons. Perhaps they mistrust Manchester City’s motives, they fear a cover-up, they feel shame, they have no desire to revisit the past.
not every Bennell player was a victim, either. Some of those approached have been angered, or claimed no knowledge of abuse. For obvious reasons, City must tread extraordinarily carefully. There is not a lot of trust about for football — understandably so.
Once a potential victim has been identified, sometimes by thirdparty evidence — and the investigators have a database of all those it is feared may have been victims of Bennell — a standardised letter is sent, requesting co-operation.
Cheshire Police, who have been investigating Bennell’s crimes, have copies of these letters, too, allowing them to make contact on City’s behalf during their own inquiries.
It has been a slow process. Pinsent Masons have interviewed approximately 120 people over a period of 14 months, roughly two a week. They have to be cautious. Just receiving a letter of this nature can be incredibly distressing and, with Cheshire Police also involved, some victims have received more than one.
equally, the club and their lawyers have no experience of interviewing victims of sexual abuse.
early on, the decision was made to involve several special organisations in the field: Lime Culture, Intersol and Survivors Manchester. Victims were placed in rooms with experienced interviewers, including ex- detectives who worked on the Rochdale grooming case. The letters were sent out with their guidance, too.
The details of Survivors Manchester were also passed on and a representative from the group is always present, in an adjacent room, during the interview process. These are greatly challenging encounters involving days of preparation and then fact-checking. And City have not even begun interviews with victims involved in Bennell’s criminal trial.
One moment of thoughtlessness can cause enormous anguish. A survivors group reported a television programme that dug out old photos of a Bennell youth team and did not obscure all the faces, causing consternation.
Former players were contacted by horrified relatives, subject to unexpected and immediate interrogation. Little catastrophes like this underline the need for adequate process.
Pinsent Masons, who act for the club in other areas, were chosen by City because it was felt they could be trusted to be frank with the findings. Independent investigators were considered, but it was decided a new company might see the inquiry as a chance to get City’s business and tell them only what they wanted to hear.
That most certainly has not been the case.
One of the most devastating revelations of recent days has been the uncovering of a second paedophile, John Broome, whose youth teams had links to the club in the 1960s.
his name emerged as a result of City’s investigation, with those suspected of being victims of Bennell telling stories of Broome instead. his name also began to appear on fans’ forums and, when contacted, Greater Manchester Police revealed they had a file.
As a result of Broome’s name becoming known, at least 10 more of his victims have come forward since Thursday and will be interviewed in the coming weeks.
There is a feeling the picture is becoming clearer, even if it is crushing for the spirit and horribly unpleasant.
More than anything, it raises the question of what would be found if other clubs conducted a forensic investigation of the past in this way.
By the end of 2017, 334 clubs had been named to those investigating abuse in football on behalf of the Football Association.
‘There is no way this was only an issue for Manchester City’s feeder teams,’ said one investigator. ‘If every club looked, who knows what the hell would be found?’