Children have been sexually abused – including by other children – during “initiation rituals” within British sport, the industry’s most senior child protection officer has revealed.

In a horrifying twist on the paedophile scandal that has rocked football and other sports, Anne Tiivas, the head of the Child Protection in Sport Unit, confirmed there had been such “incidents”, some of which had even been sanctioned by adults and overlooked by parents.

She said governing bodies had taken action to stamp out sexually-abusive initiation ceremonies, which she claimed had often been accepted as the norm previously.

“There was a lot of acceptance of behaviours in sport you would never tolerate in a school,” added Tiivas, who has run the CPSU – a partnership between the NSPCC, Sport England, Sport Northern Ireland and Sport Wales – since 2008.

“We would have people ringing up from sports saying, ‘We just had this dreadful initiation ceremony, where these children have been sexually abused by their peers as part of the initiation’. And, actually, high-profile, well-connected parents have managed to persuade police that, for instance, ‘This is just part of the culture of sport and what you have to do to get involved. And it’s just a bit of fun’. 

“Whereas it’s, actually, organised sexual abuse being sanctioned by adults.”

Tiivas highlighted one example from around a decade ago which helped inform policies she said had made sexually-abusive initiation ceremonies “comparatively unusual” today.

“They were sexually abusive initiation rituals that involved young people sexually abusing other young people and it wasn’t challenged by coaches,” she said.

“It came to our attention through the sport. They wanted some help with responding to it because a parent of one of the children who had witnessed it had been obviously traumatised by what had happened.

“And they reported it and we supported the sport to take it out to statutory agencies, so a proper investigation could be conducted.”

Tiivas refused to divulge the identity of the sport involved or the nature of the abuse that had taken place because it had not resulted in a prosecution and she did not want to risk the name of any victim being exposed.

She added: “Sport was operating, when we started, in a separate universe in some ways and behaviours were not being challenged. There wasn’t a system for them to be held to account or to challenge practices, so it was very easy for children, parents, others, to – as you might if you go up to university or go up to college – accept behaviours that you wouldn’t accept anywhere else.”

Twelve years ago, the anonymous former Premier League player behind The Secret Footballer books claimed a friend who played for another club as a youngster had been sexually assaulted with a broom handle during a “totally horrific” initiation ceremony.

He added: “It was common practice, too. Thankfully, it’s disappeared from the game today.”

Seven years later, a South African private schoolboy was allegedly sexually assaulted with a broom handle in an initiation ceremony during a rugby tour.

In October 2015, former Stoke City goalkeeper Peter Fox was cleared by Preston County Court of assaulting, during the 1980s, a 16-year-old trainee with a glove smeared in Deep Heat.

Source: The Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sport/2017/06/22/child-sex-abuse-part-initiation-ceremonies/