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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Changing for swimming with a nasty man

18 replies

DeanElderberry · 10/11/2023 18:45

No gender aspect to this, just a blatant example of how young girls learn that there are creepy males out there, and how changing for swimming is an opportunity for them.

https://www.rte.ie/news/courts/2023/1110/1415884-swim-court/

I will be interested to see what sentence he gets.

OP posts:
IcakethereforeIam · 10/11/2023 19:02

The reasons put forward for mitigation are mostly chickens coming home to roost. I'll save my sympathy for his victims and his wife.

ArthurbellaScott · 10/11/2023 19:05

'The girl who discovered the camera said her life changed from that moment.
"Matt would never do that," she said. "I checked, I turned over the phone. I was scared, terrified, what will he do?"
She said she was overcome with fear and ran away when new coaches were assigned and wanted to show the swimmers a video in the office.
The girl said she feels anxiety every time there is a news story and that if Coward had pleaded guilty at the time she would have felt better. She said she had been forced to think about a trial.
"I thought he believed in me," she said, "I trusted him and his coaching methods. I’m now more cautious, checking for danger.
"The main thing I have lost is trust, it’s hard to trust new coaches, teachers.
"I avoid one-on-one conversations. It’s hard to make new friends. It’s hard to come to terms with what happened, hard to understand he knew exactly what he was doing."

Another child described how she used to love swimming, but that training is now a burden.
Coward, she said, was like a father figure, but she is now much less open and happy, and finds it difficult to trust people, men in particular, including the new coach who has done nothing wrong.
She also spoke about how her family and parents blame themselves and how her mother and father are still suffering.'

ArthurbellaScott · 10/11/2023 19:06

Yes, I also feel for his wife.

fedupandstuck · 10/11/2023 19:06

I have no words for men like this. Such deviousness and planning, and total disregard for those girls as people.

ArthurbellaScott · 10/11/2023 19:12

No wonder so many women prefer wild swimming.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 10/11/2023 19:13

This also shows how the relentless erosion of safeguarding enables this type of man. Of course girls should only be changing in the official women's changing rooms and not some random man's office. But challenging men like this is hard and he relied on using his power / authority to compel them to change in an inappropriate space.

Cancelledcurio · 10/11/2023 19:17

Is it just me or are these men getting more daring ? I'm sick of them. Vile creeps. I warn my daughter about these creeps and she loves the swimming. She's already been followed home once and sexually assaulted once. She's only 17.

DeanElderberry · 10/11/2023 19:32

Irish swimming has had such a history of abuse (google George Gibney for a taster if you need it) that it should have every safeguard in place, but it still happens. These men are so brazen.

Yes, all my sympathy is for his wife. With a side order of hoping that wherever Starbucks are employing him, I hope it doesn't involve contact with customers (is it Starbucks who ask your name so they can write it on your cup?).

OP posts:
Froodwithatowel · 10/11/2023 19:38

The common factor: always seeing females as a resource with absolute entitlement to use in any way that happens to serve in the moment.

Yes, his poor wife.

StellaAndCrow · 10/11/2023 19:54

In one of Riley Gaines videos about Lia Thomas being in the girls changing room, she mentioned that the specialist swimsuits could take 40 mins to get into. How awful having to do that in front of a male.

UtopiaPlanitia · 10/11/2023 20:41

DeanElderberry · 10/11/2023 19:32

Irish swimming has had such a history of abuse (google George Gibney for a taster if you need it) that it should have every safeguard in place, but it still happens. These men are so brazen.

Yes, all my sympathy is for his wife. With a side order of hoping that wherever Starbucks are employing him, I hope it doesn't involve contact with customers (is it Starbucks who ask your name so they can write it on your cup?).

Ireland had so many egregious cases of sexual abuse of children over the decades that I’m horrified that no state or government agency considers safeguarding when it came to the self-ID law and the queering of the schools and school curricula.

YouJustDoYou · 10/11/2023 20:43

I know, I know, NAMALT...but fuck me sideways, yet another one, and it will never end, and never lessen, and there will always be creepy fucking pervy paedos like this guy.

MrsOvertonsWindow · 10/11/2023 22:30

UtopiaPlanitia · 10/11/2023 20:41

Ireland had so many egregious cases of sexual abuse of children over the decades that I’m horrified that no state or government agency considers safeguarding when it came to the self-ID law and the queering of the schools and school curricula.

Edited

Depressingly swimming all over the UK has an abysmal record of child abuse. Which is why it's so unforgivable for all the swimming associations to have allowed the dodgy individuals / organisations to successfully influence the removal of single sex changing rooms for girls and women.

Believerinbiology · 10/11/2023 22:54

Please save your sympathy for the girls he violated, whose trust he ruined and for whom he tarnished a sport they enjoyed. It says his defence supplied letters from his wife and her mother (as they were given in by the defence I assume they are excusing his actions rather than condemning them) so I have no sympathy for his wife.

UtopiaPlanitia · 10/11/2023 23:05

Believerinbiology · 10/11/2023 22:54

Please save your sympathy for the girls he violated, whose trust he ruined and for whom he tarnished a sport they enjoyed. It says his defence supplied letters from his wife and her mother (as they were given in by the defence I assume they are excusing his actions rather than condemning them) so I have no sympathy for his wife.

Oh, that’s disappointing to hear. I can never understand why that happens, some women seem able to tolerate dreadful behaviour in their relationships.

Those poor girls should never have had to go through that. It’s heartbreaking to have that done to them.

Floogal · 10/11/2023 23:08

Hate it. Another perpetrator playing the 'vulnerable' card when caught. So unfair on actual vulnerable adults.

IcakethereforeIam · 10/11/2023 23:22

I missed that. Apologies to the young girls he targeted.

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