When women in sport report sexual abuse....

There is another sentencing hearing next week. More victims have come forward to give victim impact statements.

There is a move to restrict victim impact statements only coming from those who are named as victims. For a case like this I'm very against victim statements being limited. I think it's very important the victims are all heard if they want to speak.

Girls know, even at a young age, when men are trying to push boundaries, hence the concerted effort men have made to make women doubt themselves - and they've been very successful at it.

When my abuser offered to bathe me while he was bathing his daughter when I was about 6 I knew it was weird and creepy, and I objected. And yet my mother insisted - it was more important to her not to upset her nice male friend than it was not to upset me. And of course my abuser then knew that I wouldn't be protected, that my mother didn't have a clue - it was the green light for him.

That's what really fucks me off about the men whining about how the #metoo campaign and others are causing men to be afraid to approach women in case they clumsily say or do the wrong thing. The implication is that women not only should but must put up with creepy, boundary-crossing behaviour on the assumption that men mean well. FUCK THAT. It is not necessary for a man every to get in my space or say something weird and inappropriate to me - I never do that to men and I don't find it hard not to do it. It is so utterly pathetic for men to claim that they somehow can't help making women feel scared and uncomfortable while trying innocently to woo them. The fact that men, without an ounce of embarrassment or shame use it as an excuse, or even as a justification for creepy behaviour shows just how entitled they are - the message is essentially 'You have to allow me to hit on you no matter how awful it is for you, because the most important thing in the world is ME and your discomfort is just an inconvenience.'

Once again FUCK THAT.

This case is so horrifying, it's hard to process. So glad that the survivors got their chance to speak.

The silence around Bill Cosby is deafening. Zero accountability and it's disgusting he is getting away with it. Speaking to my friend in the music industry here in the US, it was a shock that Keisha didn't win vocal of the year for pray.

Predators often aim to work around sports precisely because it's one of the best ways of getting access to kids, but I think that any sport that combines being trained to ignore as much pain as is the case in gymnastics with an emphasis on performative femininity is going to be particularly bad. Figure skating has a lot of the same issues. Doesn't mean you should never let your child do either, but watching them like a hawk is a good idea.

The fact that the university was apparently using this asshole as part of their recruiting, ie you should send your kid here because look at the superstar doctor we have, is particularly nauseating.

Yes, what happened about Bill Cosby? That all went very quiet and he doesn't seem to have paid the price for his crimes.

Quentin
I think there's a balance between vigilance and paranoia - and we are right to be vigilant.
I read the comment about gymnastics slightly differently in that I thought it referred to him using the nature of gymnastics as exercise to "justify' what he was going. But I may be wrong.
I do know that sport has a lot to answer for for too often creating cultures where children's views were often not respected, they weren't listened to and they were and still are often bullied by adults with limited emotional maturity.

the girls were dismissed when they complained

It's not only a feature of serial sex offenders against children. Adult women are also disbelieved. Harvey Weinstein, Bill Cosby, John Worboys ...

And yes Hairy. As schools tightened up about safeguarding in the 1980s, and those seeking to harm children were kicked out of schools, some of them started setting up sports clubs in order to access children. And music lessons, swimming and private tutoring were also places where paedophiles headed.
There have been a lot of changes and there is now guidance for parents about music and tutoring and sports clubs are more monitored, especially when they use public buildings. But none of this picks up the 'under the radar' adults who just shouldn't be working with children and young people.

My dd does a lot of dance, not a sport obviously, but a similar physical training aspect. Parents are not allowed to stay in the room because some children could be distracted and pay attention to the parents rather than the teacher.

For the little ones, though, there is always more than one adult in the room. They are well supervised imo.

There's a balance to be had I think. Any sports coach excluding parents needs to ensure that all their safeguarding procedures are first class - always multiple adults, everything in plain sight, supervision in changing rooms and toilets, rigorous risk assessments etc - everything so open and above board that children and parents feel confident.
Personally I'd always have open access for parents where under 5s are involved - and probably older (with strict instructions about non intervention to keep the 'over involved' under control)

Half way through the Hadley Freeman article, and I've paused to do a bit of a brain dump/ask a question.

DS has always been very athletic and totally bouncy (think Tigger on speed), so I've spent a lot of time from when he was tiny finding active stuff to wear him out. When he was 2 I used to take him to a toddler gym club at the local (very successful) gymnastics club. Age 3 when it came time for him to move up a class, the next class up parents were not welcome - you were not allowed to stay, even to sit quietly at the side of the room. DS was really unhappy with this (no suggestion of anything untoward, just a natural 3 year old who didn't want to be left alone), so we quit the gym club.

But it strikes me that this sort of environment where children are expected to be left without parental supervision from a very early age is precisely the sort of environment where abuse can thrive (incidentally I am not saying this happened at the gym club DS went to - I had nothing to set my spidey senses off, nor have I heard any rumours - and it's a small town!)

So - is it normal? DS, now much older, now plays rugby and football, and parents are often around, particularly with rugby.

Hadley Freeman has a very good article about the sustained gaslighting of girls, the 'ethos' of competitive gymnastics where girls 'doubt their own feelings', let alone the complicity of adults in covering it up.
www.theguardian.com/sport/2018/jan/26/larry-nassar-abuse-gymnasts-scandal-culture

Basically he can always appeal if there is evidence that his trial to find him guilty is considered unfair.

As I understand it, he plead guilty and there was no trial.

I was talking theoretically about appealing the sentence itself. Then I read elsewhere that part of the plea bargain includes giving up his right to appeal the sentence.

pilar Basically he can always appeal if there is evidence that his trial to find him guilty is considered unfair. He plead guilty so trial was relatively quick. The guy was trying to open up the opportunity to appeal and the judge saw right through it and called him on it.

The US Olympic committee has given the USA gymnastics board six days to resign or their status as the sports national governing body will be terminated. They are requiring that none of those terminated with the exception of the five athlete reps are allowed to serve as interim members.

It looks like those victim impact statements had an effect.

It's an utterly horrific case

The judge is wonderful

The reason she asked him if he wanted to change is plea was to shut down his chance of appeal and parole.

Ah ok, so he lost his right to appeal as part of the plea bargain. We do not have a plea bargain system in England. It is very different from the US in that regard.

Yes my understanding is because there was no question of guilt she no longer needed to be impartial. Victim impact was a part of the sentencing process not determining guilt.

Isn't it like here when a judge explains the sentence and talks about the despicable acts etc at sentencing, frequently nothing impartial about the judges comments at this point. This stood out
because there were so many young women reading their statements.

The reason she asked him if he wanted to change is plea was to shut down his chance of appeal and parole.

The way it works here is you have the court decide if you are guilty or not. The judge has to be impartial for that. Then you have sentencing which can only happen once you are found guilty. It's at sentencing that victims make their impact statements, which they did in their hundreds.

Bernie Madoff got 150 years because he ruined lives. What this guy did is absolutely horrific from the actual crime committed through to the multiple attempts to cover it up. The whole of the Olympic team have been abused and have had to use their celebrity to get this guy removed from society. The judge got it right and is forcing the gymnastics association to change.

I presume the sentence can be appealed, if the judge was not impartial enough. That's why there is an appeals process, because judges are human beings and may get things wrong.

The media backlash against Judge Aquilina is just plain old misogyny, though.