Paedophilia within the game/City launch redress scheme

[Centurions]

The club are coming under heavy criticism for using a pedo as a defence witness for the club.
Even if that isn't what's really happening

Anyone who uses this as a reason to have a pop at the club can get to fuck, ten times over.

 

[Kinkys Left Foot]

You would think that any journalist worth their salt would cover the story from both angles if City have dealt with abusees as well if not better than expected. However it would seem as usual they only want to give one side of the story. They have no integrity and are professional whores.

 

[Invisible Man's Bandage]

The club have Barry Bennell giving evidence on their behalf in the High Court.

I know they cannot just accept every claim but this doesn't sit right to me.

Paedophile coach denies abusing four men suing City over abuse claims

The Premier League club today called the convicted sex offender to give evidence on their behalf in a High Court case defending damages claims made by former youth players.

mol.im

 

[M18CTID]

The club have Barry Bennell giving evidence on their behalf in the High Court.

I know they cannot just accept every claim but this doesn't sit right to me.

Paedophile coach denies abusing four men suing City over abuse claims

The Premier League club today called the convicted sex offender to give evidence on their behalf in a High Court case defending damages claims made by former youth players.

mol.im

I thought this was explained on the previous page by @Pablo ZZZ Peroni quoting Daniel Taylor’s article whereby this is now out of City’s hands so it’s not City who have called him as a witness.

 

[Invisible Man's Bandage]

I thought this was explained on the previous page by @Pablo ZZZ Peroni quoting Daniel Taylor’s article whereby this is now out of City’s hands so it’s not City who have called him as a witness.

I hadn't seen that so thanks for pointing it out.

It's odd as the Taylor article seems to state that the legal firm representing the plaintiffs haven't gone through the City scheme but the case seems to be about establishing a link between Bennell and the club during the dates any abuse took place.

It is the Mail and obviously their journalism is barely worthy of the name and maybe it is a tactic by this law firm to get the club to settle rather than be linked to Bennell?

 

[Blue Mist]

I hadn't seen that so thanks for pointing it out.

It's odd as the Taylor article seems to state that the legal firm representing the plaintiffs haven't gone through the City scheme but the case seems to be about establishing a link between Bennell and the club during the dates any abuse took place.

It is the Mail and obviously their journalism is barely worthy of the name and maybe it is a tactic by this law firm to get the club to settle rather than be linked to Bennell?

I think it is more about money for the victims lawyers. They advised the victims not to settle and to go to court. KERCHING.

 

[The Future’s Blue!]

We have been impeccable with this issue and, even though many years later, followed a plan that we didn’t have to deliver.

 

[petrusha]

I thought this was explained on the previous page by @Pablo ZZZ Peroni quoting Daniel Taylor’s article whereby this is now out of City’s hands so it’s not City who have called him as a witness.

Yes. It's like, if you're involved in a car accident and the insurers can't agree on liability and the other party believes you're at fault, it's open to them to sue you in the civil courts. You'll nominally be the defendant but there'll be a condition in the insurance contract specifying that the insurers conduct the case. You'll have no involvement in the proceedings apart from maybe having to appear as a witness. But you have no role in taking decisions about how to handle the defence case.

What we have in this instance involving City is a law firm acting for eight claimants that has advised them not to accept an offer made through the club's own compensation scheme. This seems to be because they're seeking compensation not only for the suffering caused by Bennell but also a loss of earnings from the football career, or the better football career in some cases, they missed out on owing to their being sexually abused by Bennell. The club's compensation scheme presumably took no account of this factor.

In his article for the Athletic referred to above, Daniel Taylor explained it as follows:

[the] trial ... will take on a different form to the cases that have previously been settled out of court with Chelsea, Aston Villa, Leicester City, Southampton, Crewe and all the other clubs embroiled in football’s sexual-abuse scandal.

To be specific, the law firm representing the eight players is also seeking “special damages” for loss of earnings.

Some of Bennell’s victims made careers in football but, according to their legal team, could have gone much further. Others fell by the wayside and blame it on the shattering effects of Bennell’s crimes.

There is no precedent in football for special damages being awarded before, in cases of this nature, and the players’ solicitors will argue the compensation ought to run into millions of pounds.

So the lawyers are trying to do something that breaks new ground in football cases involving abuse by coaches of youth and junior teams. And I know that the overwhelming sentiment here will be to accuse the law firm of opportunism, aiming to take advantage in a case where an insurance company with deep pockets will be footing the eventual bill.

I'm not happy to subscribe to such an analysis, at least not at this stage. And I'll only eventually be prepared to opine something similar if in due course we see that the arguments they put forward and their reception from the judge in the case merit such a withering assessment. That's the time for us to make our minds up.

I must admit, I know next to nothing about special damages in civil claims concerning child abuse for the loss of or damage to a career. But if there are other fields where such damages have been awarded, it seems to me reasonable enough for the lawyers to seek to ensure that their clients aren't deprived of such an award just because their aspirations lay in the area of professional football. Anyway, as my old grandmother used to say, it'll all come out in the wash.

One final point. From Bennell's evidence, it seems that the insurers are trying to argue that Bennell was officially associated with City from 1975 to 1979, but not between the latter date and 1984 or 1985. Thus, I assume their argument goes, the club isn't liable for negligence with respect to any offences of Bennell in that second period.

City didn't, as far as I know, make this distinction in administering the club's compensation scheme. Indeed, it's been publicly stated many times that Bennell was freely able to take boys to Platt Lane and Maine Road during the later period. It'll be interesting, then, to see how far the insurers get with their argument on this point.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

How is Bennell tied in to John Broome, whom I think was also involved in this around the first period in the late 70’s?

I think Broome was involved in Manchester (Tameside?) schoolboy football around that period.

 

[petrusha]

How is Bennell tied in to John Broome, whom I think was also involved in this around the first period in the late 70’s?

I think Broome was involved in Manchester (Tameside?) schoolboy football around that period.

City commissioned a review conducted under the leadership of barrister Jane Mulcahy QC to "understand whether, and if so how, the Club was used by Barry Bennell or any other individual to facilitate alleged sexual abuse of children from the early 1960s to the present day". Mulcahy's report was placed on the official club website in March of this year, but currently seems to be unavailable, no doubt because its availability could potentially prejudice the current proceedings.

My recollection is that the report found no grounds to suspect any relationship or connection between Broome and Bennell. The former was involved at City between the late sixties until 1971 or 1972. As I remember, after receiving complaints about him, City bombed him out of the club - but didn't report him to the authorities, which left him free to use other routes to inveigle himself into youth football in the Manchester area and commit abuse there, too.

There was also a third abuser identified, in the early 1990s, called Bill Toner. He claimed to be a City scout, but the club could find no evidence of him having had any formal or semi-formal role at the club, only that he once tried to get us to take on a youth prospect he'd identified. Toner was jailed in 2018 but his prison term, even if he served it in full, will have ended now: https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-44902753. Again, there was no reason to suspect any links with Broome or Bennell.

Incidentally, as far as the timing is concerned in the current Bennell civil proceedings, Daniel Taylor wrote this on 22 October:

The trial begins in the High Court in central London on Monday [25 October] and, to put it into context, is expected to last considerably longer than the five-week criminal proceedings at Liverpool Crown Court in early 2018 that finished with Bennell being convicted of 52 offences.

That means it's currently in its sixth week. "Considerably longer" is a rather vague phrase, but I'd suspect another couple of weeks at a minimum.

EDIT:

Daniel Taylor has another report in The Athletic today, this time about Bennell giving evidence yesterday. I won't produce the whole piece on here, as the forum's Code of Conduct prohibits this for copyright reasons. However, the link is here for anyone with a subscription:

Meanwhile, here's an extract for those who may be interested:

City also released a statement last month to clarify that Bennell had been called by the legal firm representing their insurers, rather than by the club themselves. It was, City said, merely a “formality” that their name was listed on the case.

On the first day of the trial, however, the QC representing the players said that last line was not correct.

What can be said for certain is that many of Bennell’s victims have been shocked and angered by the club’s attempt to distance themselves from this case and, specifically, the decision to involve the man whose crimes have shattered their lives.

They don’t understand how City, having already apologised for Bennell’s crimes, could let it happen.

“It’s a spectacular own goal on City’s part,” says one.

“The whole thing is a disgrace,” says another.