I beg to move,
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to amend the Sexual Offences Act 2003 to make sports coach a position of trust for the purposes of child sex offences; and for connected purposes.
I rise today to introduce this Bill out of sheer frustration at the lack of progress to extend the positions of trust legislation to sports coaches. I was in post as Sports Minister when the scandal of historic abuse in football broke. It was a no-brainer that while safeguards in sport are much better than they were, loopholes existed and this is by far the greatest of them all. When positions of trust was first discussed in the late ’90s, organisations such as the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, the Christian Institute and others raised concerns about the exclusion of sports coaches. They continue to welcome efforts, alongside newer organisations such as the Offside Trust, to expand the legislation to protect young people from abuse by those who hold some form of power over them.
I will never forget the bravery of the former Crewe Alexandra player Andy Woodward, who publicly revealed that he was a victim of Barry Bennell, a prolific sex offender who is now in prison for multiple counts of abuse. Owing to Andy coming forward, the Football Association and the NSPCC set up a hotline dedicated to helping footballers who had experienced historical sexual abuse. In the first week, the hotline received nearly 900 calls. The footballer sexual abuse scandal has been widely documented, but the problem is not limited to football. In the weeks that followed, I listened to heartbreaking testimonies of athletes from various sports, speaking out about their experiences of historical sexual abuse at the hands of coercive coaches or managers who abused their position of trust for their own gratification.
How sport reacted to those horrific stories is something that should be recognised. The FA did what it had to do for football and the same was done for other sports. Within a relatively short time, sport as a whole, while recognising that many of the incidents in the press were historical and took place before much of our child protection legislation was in place, instigated internal changes to safeguarding practices to ensure that procedures were in place today to maximise protection against abuse in sport. All sport, with support from Sport England and the NSPCC’s Child Protection in Sport Unit, made positive changes in a relatively short time to the way they keep their participants safe. They rightly took responsibility and they took it seriously. Yet the one reasonable request of Government they asked, one that the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and I supported, is the one area that still lacks progress: to close the loophole in the misuse of positions of trust legislation to include sports coaches.
Under the Sexual Offences Act 2003, it is illegal for certain professions, such as teachers, to engage in sexual activity with a 16 or 17-year-old, as they are considered a person in a position of trust. The Act prescribes a limited number of roles, but does not extend into a range of non-statutory settings that may be subject to far less scrutiny than those covered by the Act. We should perhaps reflect briefly on why we have that particular section of legislation in the 2003 Act. People who work in schools as carers or youth workers will have gone through the required Disclosure and Barring Service checks. Although some might fall through the cracks, ultimately people who pose a known risk to children or vulnerable adults will not, if the system works properly, be allowed to work in that sector. The legislation adds an extra layer of safeguarding to prevent those in positions of trust from forming relationships with children who, although they are over the age of consent, are not considered legal adults and could be abused, given the nature of the power balance. At present, a continued reliance on the law of consent and the accompanying Crown Prosecution Service guidance, such as the aide-mémoire on the abuse of power, places the responsibility on young people themselves to recognise and resist sexual advances from adults in positions of authority over them who are not on the current prescribed list.