Child safety in athletics is paramount, claim under-fire UKA

UK Athletics put in place structures nearly a decade ago to avoid a repeat of the Darrell Bunn case.

The sport’s governing body has been accused of a cover-up of sexual abuse by an unnamed athlete who began a relationship with the coach in 1999, when she was 16 and he 50.

Bunn, who has worked with Jessica Ennis-Hill and Denise Lewis, was allowed to continue working with young athletes but on the proviso that he be supervised when coaching any athlete under the age of 18.

In 2014, Bunn was given a two-year suspended sentence after pleading guilty to nine charges of indecent assault and two counts of child abduction. He escaped jail because he was suffering from incurable cancer.

The judge in that case told Bunn: “Had you been a well man, you would have gone down. For many years you and the victim both carried a secret that, for her, proved to be unbearable”. The victim in question was a 15-year-old, who he had groomed in the late 1980s.

Niels de Vos restructured UKA’s approach to child welfare when he was appointed chief executive in 2007, although not as a direct result of the Bunn case. Changes included bringing in former leading Greater Manchester Police detective David Brown CBE to head up child welfare in the organisation, rather than it being run in-house.

A keen athletics fan, Brown is the president and former charirman of Sale Harriers and headed GMP’s serious and organised crime unit before his retirement.

In the body’s Safeguarding Children Welfare Policy for 2016, UKA said its aim was that children were “entitled to participate in an enjoyable and safe environment” and that the objective for the 250,000 children involved in athletics in the UK and the 100,000 adults “is to build a safer future in athletics for children under the age of 18 years”.

UKA is potentially facing legal action from Bunn’s 16-year-old accuser, who is now in her thirties.

She told the Daily Telegraph: “It seems to me that UKA would simply like this all to go away, as they did when I complained 13 years ago. It angers me that, after all this time, I still haven’t had an apology. What happened all those years ago has changed me.”

In response, UKA said in a statement: “UK Athletics takes allegations of abuse by coaches extremely seriously and the welfare of all children involved in athletes is paramount. In recent years, UK Athletics’ welfare policies and procedures have received the highest rating on the back of annual audits conducted by the CPSU, a sports unit within the NSPCC.

“UKA also annually self-assesses procedures to ensure welfare provisions are maintained and built on. However, in light of recent issues no organisation should be complacent and we at UKA remain committed to working with all relevant experts to ensure that our policies and procedures are as strong as possible.”