![]() Schadek was suspended in January 2018 before being jailed for four-and-a-half years almost two years ago for sexually assaulting two children. “And their answer was, ‘That’s up to him. I said, ‘You know that Dave is giving Bacardi and Cokes to this gymnast, that he is also sharing a room with? Albeit with consent of the parent’. “So I went over to the hierarchy of British Gymnastics. “She was very young, 13 or 14,” Norman said. Norman also said he had seen Schadek buying an underage gymnast an alcoholic drink around 15 years before the coach was eventually suspended. “Stuart is not a bad man he is a monster,” he added. Reading Crown Court heard Woods had committed his crimes on school premises, with the boy saying in a victim statement he “rarely experiences happiness” following the abuse. Woods was jailed for 11 years in 2021 – around 15 years after that alleged warning – for sexually abusing a boy and grooming two girls while teaching at the Reddam House Berkshire private school. Woods denies the accusation that prompted Norman’s alleged warning. He added: “I do not know what happened from then because he did not appear to get suspended, he was never out of the gym, and Stuart was then elevated to one of the national coaches.” Norman said that, upon reporting the matter, he was informed that because he had not witnessed the incident, it was merely “hearsay”. He told the programme a fellow coach had confided in him that Woods had been caught having sexual intercourse with a 14-year-old behind one of the gyms the paedophile was working in. British Gymnastics failings over abuse scandal back in spotlightīritish Gymnastics also faces accusations it ignored warnings about two paedophile coaches almost four years after the abuse scandal that engulfed it.Ī former leading gymnastics judge told the ITV documentary that he had raised the alarm about Stuart Woods and David Schadek several years before they were jailed for child sexual offences.Īnd in arguably the most serious allegations made yet against the beleaguered governing body, Daren Norman said his concerns had been dismissed before criminal offences went on to be committed. The governing body is being sued by dozens of former gymnasts, with the number of cases settled so far in the single figures. ![]() I would like to express my sincere thanks on behalf of British Gymnastics for the courage and persistence you have shown in sharing your experiences,” the letter read. “I fully appreciate that the events that you have endured were traumatic and pursuing a claim will have placed added pressure on you. In a letter signed by Powell, British Gymnastics acknowledged and accepted “the impact that the behaviour of your former coach, Stan Wild, has had on your health and well-being”. I feel like I have been pushed from pillar to post,” she said. “I turned 30 this year and I’ve been battling this for 16 years… It acknowledges the fact that they believe me, all these years I have not felt believed. O’Donnell – who said in Thursday night’s documentary, Gymnastics: A Culture of Abuse?, that her ordeal had made her feel suicidal – told ITV News she was “relieved” at the settlement, and that a “weight had been lifted” off her shoulders. Wild, who denies any wrongdoing, was struck off by British Gymnastics in 2020, 12 years after it became aware of O’Donnell’s complaint. The claims against Wild, who competed for Great Britain at the 19 Olympics, were investigated by police but he was not charged after the Crown Prosecution Service ruled there was insufficient evidence against him. O’Donnell was nine when her own alleged ordeal, which she said included groping, began. The 30-year-old also received a written apology from British Gymnastics chief executive Sarah Powell for the abuse said to have been carried out by her former coach, Stan Wild, who has also been accused of inappropriate behaviour or touching by two other alleged victims. ![]() British Gymnastics has paid tens of thousands of pounds in damages to a former gymnast suing it for child sexual abuse she allegedly suffered at the hands of an ex-Olympian.Īlmost three years after she waived her right to anonymity during a Telegraph Sport investigation into her case – and hours before an ITV documentary featuring her story aired on Thursday night – Nikki O’Donnell’s claim against the governing body was finally settled.
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