Paedophilia within the game/City launch redress scheme

Incredible to think how much this story has exploded in such a short space of time. I've not had much chance to get up to speed with the posts on here over the past few days and now I have, I'm struggling to take it all in.

One of the things that has crossed my mind - when Bennell was first convicted over here in 1998, does anyone recall any media coverage of it? My memory is pretty good and I can't honestly remember hearing or reading about it at the time. Obviously it would've gotten some column inches somewhere but I find it astonishing that more wasn't made of it at the time, both in the media and amongst the football authorities.
 
M18CTID said:
Incredible to think how much this story has exploded in such a short space of time. I've not had much chance to get up to speed with the posts on here over the past few days and now I have, I'm struggling to take it all in.

One of the things that has crossed my mind - when Bennell was first convicted over here in 1998, does anyone recall any media coverage of it? My memory is pretty good and I can't honestly remember hearing or reading about it at the time. Obviously it would've gotten some column inches somewhere but I find it astonishing that more wasn't made of it at the time, both in the media and amongst the football authorities.
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I'd never heard of him until a week or so ago. I'm 34 so I might be a bit young to have known him as a coach or scout but what seems pretty certain is that a lot of people have gone to great depths to keep all this as quiet as possible. But now the can has been opened there's no going back.
 
M18CTID said:
Incredible to think how much this story has exploded in such a short space of time. I've not had much chance to get up to speed with the posts on here over the past few days and now I have, I'm struggling to take it all in.

One of the things that has crossed my mind - when Bennell was first convicted over here in 1998, does anyone recall any media coverage of it? My memory is pretty good and I can't honestly remember hearing or reading about it at the time. Obviously it would've gotten some column inches somewhere but I find it astonishing that more wasn't made of it at the time, both in the media and amongst the football authorities.
Click to expand...

I was living abroad at the time, as I am again now, but I was already a regular on the old Blue Moon forum at that point as well as a subscriber to MCIVTA. I don't recall any talk of it, to be honest. If I can narrow down the date of his trial to the month, I'll have a look in the MCIVTA archive and see if it was mentioned.

Incidentally, there was a TV documentary about it in the Dispatches series in 1997, which I think was made on the back of Bennell being deported back to Britain after serving a sentence for his conviction in Florida and it's on youtube:



However, a lot of people have been saying that it generated a really sparse amount of follow-up interest, which is surprising given the seriousness of the subject matter. The role of the press is the subject matter of this column in The Guardian by Marina Hyde: https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ing-spotlight-abuse-football?CMP=share_btn_tw - the headline ('Football abuse scandal shows media must learn lessons from its silences') pretty well sums up her line of argument.

The programme features Ken Barnes and the former City director Chris Muir. I watched it the other night when I got home from meeting a mate for a few jars so my judgement might have been impaired, but I thought Ken came over really terribly. Again, if I can track the broadcast date, I'll dig around in the MCIVTA archive. You'd have thought it would engender a lot of discussion given that City figures were taking part.
 
petrusha said:
I was living abroad at the time, as I am again now, but I was already a regular on the old Blue Moon forum at that point as well as a subscriber to MCIVTA. I don't recall any talk of it, to be honest. If I can narrow down the date of his trial to the month, I'll have a look in the MCIVTA archive and see if it was mentioned.

Incidentally, there was a TV documentary about it in the Dispatches series in 1997, which I think was made on the back of Bennell being deported back to Britain after serving a sentence for his conviction in Florida and it's on youtube:



However, a lot of people have been saying that it generated a really sparse amount of follow-up interest, which is surprising given the seriousness of the subject matter. The role of the press is the subject matter of this column in The Guardian by Marina Hyde: https://www.theguardian.com/footbal...ing-spotlight-abuse-football?CMP=share_btn_tw - the headline ('Football abuse scandal shows media must learn lessons from its silences') pretty well sums up her line of argument.

The programme features Ken Barnes and the former City director Chris Muir. I watched it the other night when I got home from meeting a mate for a few jars so my judgement might have been impaired, but I thought Ken came over really terribly. Again, if I can track the broadcast date, I'll dig around in the MCIVTA archive. You'd have thought it would engender a lot of discussion given that City figures were taking part.
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Cheer Peter. And Jay. I've had a quick search online and couldn't see any archived media reports but according to Wiki he was up in court in June 1998. Also states that former United player Alan Davies was a "favourite" of his, along with Gary Speed. Like Speed, Davies took his own life:

In February 1998, Bennell appeared at Mold Crown Court in north Wales and pleaded not guilty to charges of indecent assault, buggery and attempted buggery dating back to the 1970s and 1980s through to 1992, against children aged between nine and 15, with offences alleged to have taken place in Derbyshire, the Crewe area and at Butlin's in Pwllheli, north Wales. Bennell was remanded in custody to appear at Chester Crown Court in June 1998.[23] At Chester, Bennell was found guilty of 23 offences against six boys (including Ian Ackley),[24] and received a nine-year jail sentence (a further 22 offences were left on file because the Crown Prosecution Service decided it was better not to put young boys through the trauma of a trial).[20] In May 2015, Bennell (now known as 'Richard Jones' and living in Milton Keynes) received a further sentence of two years after pleading guilty to sexually abusing another boy at a camp in Macclesfield in 1980.[9][25][26]

At the inquest in 2012 into the death of Gary Speed, it was alleged that Speed and former Manchester United player Alan Davies had been "favourites" of Bennell, though there was no suggestion they had been abused by Bennell.[27] Both players later took their own lives.
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What seems telling about this as yet of all the people that have been named as coming forward not one of them is currently involved in football,
If there are hundreds involved some must be managers coaches etc
 
Sounds like the vile twat should be on multiple manslaughter charges as well as paedophilia. It's quite sick to think of how many thousands of kids lives have been ruined by this and that it appears that many covered it up.
 
M18CTID said:
Cheer Peter. And Jay. I've had a quick search online and couldn't see any archived media reports but according to Wiki he was up in court in June 1998. Also states that former United player Alan Davies was a "favourite" of his, along with Gary Speed. Like Speed, Davies took his own life:
Click to expand...

I gather that the Dispatches programme was made late in 1996 and aired on 23 January 1997. At that point, MCIVTA had 1,200 subscribers and I recall from my involvement with it that we used to reckon about half were in the UK. Anyway, out of probably something like 600 UK subscribers, not a single one was moved to write in and mention that documentary at the end of January or in February. Likewise, there were no comments after Bennell's committal hearing in February 1998. Nor was there a mention about his conviction in any of the issues sent out in June or July 1998, when the number of subscribers was over 2,000. So it seems very much as though the issue really attracted very little attention at that time.

As for Speed, there are some very odd quotes by Bennell out there. He said something along the lines that he never abused Speed but would hardly be likely to admit it if he had. And he also said something about having a death on his conscience before clarifying that he meant abuse kills a person because they're never the same afterwards. Of course, a despicable, manipulative bastard like that could just be saying odd things about Gary Speed to get a rise out of people rather than because there's anything to it, but I'm not sure how the police and Speed's family can be sure there definitely isn't any substance, even though that's what they claim.

As for the scale of this, the NSPCC's helpline has received 860 calls in its first week and "about 350 victims have reported child sexual abuse within UK football clubs": http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-38172940...ng&ns_source=twitter&ns_linkname=news_central

Horrific to contemplate the scale of it.
 
The fa are going to deal seriously with any clubs found to be part of a cover up.

Who will deal with the fa ?
 
Greater Manchester Police have identified ten suspects after launching their investigation on Tuesday.
 
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