Police given canoeing sex assault allegations
A damning report about British Canoeing’s handling of complaints, including of serious sexual misconduct, has been referred to the police, The Daily Telegraph can reveal.
Almost three years since an investigation was commissioned into one of the country’s most successful Olympic and Paralympic sports, the key findings of an independent panel were finally made public yesterday.
The full report remained unpublished but The Daily Telegraph has learnt that, so serious are some of the accusations within it, a copy was passed to the police last month.
Police had already been investigating accusations of child grooming and sexual assault against a senior British Canoeing coach after at least three women made criminal allegations against him.
One former athlete claimed the coach groomed her when she was under the age of 16 and that he later took advantage of his position of power by making unwanted sexual advances towards her.
The alleged offences were said to have taken place between 2006 and 2010.
A doctor also lodged at least one complaint on behalf of one of the women, which Thames Valley Police referred to Surrey Police.
The coach at the centre of the allegations, who cannot be named for legal reasons, was suspended by British Canoeing in December 2016 following a separate claim he asked an athlete on its Paralympic performance programme to perform a sexual act on him during the buildup to the previous summer’s Games in Rio.
The governing body confirmed in June 2017 that it had received a second, separate accusation against the coach – understood to be that he boasted to a different athlete about being able to guarantee British team selection in return for sex.
The coach, who resigned following an internal investigation into the first allegation, denies any wrongdoing.
The key findings published yesterday made no mention of the accusations against him, but a confidential draft report leaked almost a year ago claimed he was “allowed to “reoffend while hiding in plain sight” years after “rumours and complaints of serious sexual misconduct” first surfaced in what was a “systematic abrogation of responsibility”.
Among the key findings published yesterday were that British Canoeing had presided over a “culture of fear” and had failed to convince the panel it had taken “all the necessary steps to mitigate the risk of a repetition”.
The panel found that the culture appeared to be the result of a view that “the pursuit of medals was at any cost” and that the governing body had adopted a “deny and defend” approach to complaints, often dealing with those who had raised them “in the harshest of terms”.
It concluded: “Judged purely on its ability to win medals, British Canoeing’s World Class Programme is/was a success; however, this success appears to have come at a heavy price – namely the physical and emotional welfare of many athletes.”
Responding to the report, the chair of British Canoeing, Prof John Coyne, said: “British Canoeing accepts in full the findings of the panel and wholeheartedly and unreservedly apologises to all those affected by the past failings of the organisation highlighted in the report.”