Open Letter Dec 2023

In December 2023 a team of Gymnasts for Change campaigners authored an Open Letter to British Gymnastics. Copied into the letter were Mike Darcy, chair of the BG board, Sally Mundy Chief Executive of UK Sport, Tim Hollingsworth CEO Sport England, Richard Harry CEO Sports Resolutions & Christopher Quinland KC the Independent Person overseeing the Independent Complaints system which was commissioned by British Gymnastics.

“...what was the point of so many coming forward and bravely telling their stories? @BritGymnastics, it’s time to sort out your complaints process. It is not working for anyone.” - Anonymous, on social media (X, formerly Twitter).

The sentiment echoed above is not a lone voice. Gymnasts for Change has been inundated with similar messages over the last three years and believes British Gymnastics’ paralysis over this issue is preventing much needed reform.

Our members tell us that there are very serious problems with the Independent Complaints Process. Both British Gymnastics and Gymnasts for Change desperately want to see abusive coaches robustly sanctioned via the ICP but, devastatingly, to date not one of our cases have had a positive outcome and no coaches made known to The Whyte Review have been banned or expelled from membership of the National Governing Body.

It is some 3 years since the establishment of the ICP with nothing to show for it, other than members involved in the process contacting us to express their dismay. The overwhelming feeling is that it is not fit for purpose and there is a complete crisis of confidence in it amongst the gymnast complainants and their families.

Some G4C members have been in contact/correspondence with the parties associated with the ICP including UK Sport, BG, Sports Resolutions and the Independent Person - Christopher Quinlan KC - receiving different responses to their queries regarding the respective roles of these organisations/personnel and where responsibility lies for reforming the process. What has become clear to us, as a result of this unsatisfactory thread of correspondence, is that it will require a robust effort from all to tackle this chaotic ‘mechanism’.

We are therefore calling for a round table discussion with all the main players in attendance because we are utterly frustrated at being passed from pillar to post when asking questions of these various parties about the ICP and its perceived failings. It is our firm view the ICP process must be immediately paused to facilitate this round-table discussion in order to allow a review of the protocols, a debrief on cases to date and enable a complete reset. In this way we hope to give the very best chance to those cases scheduled for panel in the new year.

The fundamental problems we have identified include (but are not exhaustive):

1. The ICP cases where British Gymnastics sought a lifetime ban and expulsion from membership have collapsed and failed. This is despite rigorous investigations finding behaviour so egregious that this ultimate sanction was sought. As a result of these case failures, coaches known to have abusive behaviours are still in the system and able to coach.

2. The cases that the ICP consider all come from complaints disclosed to Anne Whyte KC via referrals through the NSPCC/ British (Elite) Athletes Commission reporting hotline. They became the substance of The Whyte Review, published June 2022. Whyte herself has expressed (ITV interview, Steve Scott, November 2023) her exasperation that there are so few resolved cases or sanctions resulting from the dedicated complaints process. She says the process was set up to “determine complaints...and tackle poor practice or abusive conduct”; but that it is “in danger of having the opposite effect.”

This is a view we concur with.

3. Members involved in recent collapsed cases have highlighted serious problems with the ICP procedures and panel hearings (outlined below) and shared their frustrations with others in their victim support friendship groups. These members have agreed to share their confidential panel decisions with us, despite the threat of sanctions being levelled against them. In fact, they feel so let down by the process they say there is nothing more for them to lose.
This has resulted in witnesses/complainants involved in cases due for consideration by the ICP panel in the new year, contacting us with justifiable new concerns that their cases will ‘go the same way’, having lost faith in the governing body’s ability to tackle the issue of abusive coaches. In one case, scheduled for Spring 2024 where British Gymnastics was seeking a lifetime ban against a high-profile coach, a significant witness has formally withdrawn from the process. We are aware that others across many forthcoming cases are now considering doing the same. And without these gymnast complainants and their families, BG have no case to present to panel.

The principal procedural issues highlighted to us include:

i) The panel hearing processes are stacked heavily in favour of the coaches - who are allowed legal representation and receive all disclosures/case paperwork. Meanwhile the gymnast-complainants and their families are not involved nor consulted at any stage, leaving them feeling they have no agency in a process that was initiated by their own complaints and submissions to Whyte. This has been extremely distressing, leaving complainants exasperated, frustrated and angry. The health of these members has been so seriously compromised as a direct result of this, that G4C are looking to put in place a package of therapeutic help and support for them.

In one case involving multiple gymnasts that did not result in the recommended expulsion of the coach, the panel chair explicitly gave as their reason their inability to test or “challenge” the evidence of the complainants. However, these witnesses were never invited to provide their testimony in person and in fact were not even told the hearing was taking place, so poor was the communication.

The gymnasts/ alleged victims of abuse are disadvantaged from the outset of any ICP. They are not consulted at any point regarding the sanction they would seek nor their evidence; they have no input beyond their initial statement sometimes made some years before; crucial evidence from other sources like civil claim particulars, is left out; and because they see no disclosures, cannot rebut or counter anything the respondents submit, including good-character testimonials, which are subsequently given undue weight by the panel.

One witness described it as “going into the panel blind”.

And on conclusion of a panel hearing, the gymnast complainants are not advised of the outcome at the same time as the main parties, namely BG and the respondent coaches. In one case in a breach of the protocols that went unsanctioned, our members had to learn of the outcome via social media posts from the club involved, only receiving their formal notification a full fortnight later.

The limited information then contained in the outcome letter makes it impossible for members to appeal the decision. There have been two recent appeals mounted but both were hampered, not only by the difficulty of not understanding the grounds on which an appeal might be based, but also by our members’ view that BG lacked any will to pursue thecase further, distracted by the volume of panel hearings stacked behind.

ii). We have learnt that the gymnast complainant families providing uncontroversial testimony at panel, feel their personal lives and character come under undue scrutiny. A group of young adolescent female complainants alleging coach weight mismanagement and restriction of food leading to eating disorders requiring hospitalisation, were labelled‘impressionable’. At another panel, a complainant described belatedly learning of a “full on character assassination” as their parenting skills, relationships, home life and social media was used against them. Had these complainants had an advocate supporting them through this process, they would have felt empowered to challenge the direction and tangents these hearings took. But in any case, G4C is clear that these hearings are not meant to be so adversarial - and certainly not against the gymnast witnesses nor their families.

iii). Those who have contacted G4C have serious doubts about the calibre and experience of the case officers employed to present their case. It is unclear what criteria is being used to appoint the presenting officers and since all the cases have failed, it is not unreasonable to link the collapse of the cases with any shortfalls in their presentation. As one of our members told us: “The time for lesson-learning at our expense has surely got to be over. This is not an ‘investigations-classroom’ - this is people’s lives.”

iv) Legal representation, when provided, has been by pro bono junior counsel on an individual case by case basis. This has meant a junior lawyer coming fresh to each case, having to get themselves across an extensive, sometimes complex, back-story; as well as quickly assimilating sound knowledge of the toxic culture/abusive coach behaviours in gymnastics outlined in Whyte - and which Anne Whyte KC herself took 2 years to grasp.

G4C are of the view that the best, most experienced barristers in the fields of safeguarding and sports law, with an understanding of what abuse in a sports settings looks like, should be representing the complainants and taking forward these cases.

We would also strongly suggest one lawyer only be appointed for all cases in order to secure familiarity on the topic of gymnastics abuse and consistency in approach at hearings. G4C would welcome the opportunity to engage with this counsel going forward and so create a working relationship.

v) Of the gymnast witnesses who have been asked to give evidence, some have declined, because BG & Sports Resolutions have not followed the procedures set out in the Sports Resolutions pamphlet on what to expect at panel hearings. The pamphlet states that those being asked to give evidence have the right to give evidence in a number of ways, including speaking directly to the panel without the coach being present. In other words, in a trauma- informed way.

This option has clearly not been adhered to, leading to many gymnasts and their families withdrawing from the ICP process at the incipient panel convening stage because what they have been asked to do is to speak to the panel in front of the coach that coercively controlled them for up to 10 years. This includes at least 10 witnesses in one case, which subsequently collapsed and failed. This toxic culture was clearly expounded upon in Whyte, yet no allowances are made for it in practice at the hearings.

vi) Because of the issues described above - the substandard presentation and lack of evidence-testing - it is apparent that it has become very difficult for the panel to follow the recommendation of expulsion of membership and/or a coach lifetime ban to its conclusion.

We suspect this is down to the simple fact of the panel needing to reconcile conscionable decisions with the prospect that membership expulsion would take away the livelihood of the coach and blight their future employment prospects. Where the panel members are not confident in the evidence put forward - because it is poorly presented or not included/presented at all - they are not willing to take this ultimate sanction.

This is something we would like to explore further with Sports Resolutions, regarding the template which investigations should follow and the make-up of the panel personnel. In addition, in order to ensure full understanding, a consistent approach and avoid perverse decisions, G4C will be asking Sports Resolutions to consider having the same panel convened for each hearing.

To counter this (reluctance to ban a coach) - and provided this is in consultation and with the agreement of the gymnast complainants - we would instead like to explore consideration of sanctions like a substantial time-limited ban (for example 5-10 years) being sought. According to section 7.24.12 of the ICP protocol, the Case Management Team and the IP are able to consider as sanction for abusive coach behaviours, ‘any other action...up to but not including exclusion of membership’. This decision-stage, at which thresholds for sanctions might be considered and sought, comes immediately prior to a case being sent

to panel and appears to be in the gift of the IP.

We would bring to your attention that worldwide gymnastics commentators discussing the November 2023 case of abusive gymnastics coach Elvira Saadi in Canada, greeted her time limited 10 year ban on coaching gymnasts with immense satisfaction. The committee imposed a 10 year suspension of Saadi, with a caveat that at the end of that term she can only coach/train other coaches, never athletes, which effectively removes her from coaching for life; but removed the necessity to send her case to the only panel that could approve a formal ‘lifetime ban’.

What needs to happen and why:

-The result of the ICP’s failings is that strong, robust cases against abusive coaches are collapsing; coaches that British Gymnastics want and seek to expel from membership are still working/coaching; there is a complete lack of confidence/trust in the system by those it is meant to serve and represent; and numerous gymnasts are being re-traumatised by a process that was set up primarily to address the trauma they suffered in the first place.

We have members with failed cases who feel strongly their attempts to proffer new information (including clear breaches of the protocol) warranting a re-investigation and/or a re-hearing were fobbed-off because of the way the protocols were formatted and that they had no legal representation themselves to negotiate an appeal. G4C want the opportunity to explore this more formally with the ICP parties at any re-set discussions.

-What has also become clear during the recent publicity (BBC Woman’s Hour, Radio 5 Live, BBC News, Sky News, November 2023) introducing the latest BG policy reforms (Hydration, Weight Management and Academic Education) is the lack of knowledge or understanding among key BG executive personnel of the problems that exist, why it matters so much to the gymnastics community and the sense of real anger about this. The fact that the media stories on these new policy initiatives became, almost without exception, focussed on the same old problems must be a wake-up call for the NGB. New policies are meaningless unless monitored and underpinned by a robust complaints procedure when they are breached. Yet currently the centrepiece system to deal with non-recent complaints of long- standing coaches, is seemingly ineffectual, leaving abusive coaches in the system today.

-Whilst the ICP sits outside of The Whyte Review recommendations and therefore UK Sport have no absolute oversight of it, nevertheless we would argue that UK Sport should be very concerned at the poor speed of complaint resolution and want to be involved in discussions around any reset. Not least because we are aware of poor optics around gymnastics coaches currently under investigation getting international assignments and being in the running to be part of BG’s delegation at Paris 2024 Olympics.

-In attempts to take a neutral stance, Sarah Powell CEO British Gymnastics delegates much of the day-to-day business of the ICP to the new Director of Welfare and Safe Sport and the Head of that same department. Yet some G4C members involved in the ICP find some statements coming out of that department to be extremely contentious: namely upsetting assertions around the so-called ‘non-engagement’ of some complainants being put forward as the reason some coaches are still in the system posing a safeguarding risk. We would call for the CEO to make herself more familiar with the ICP and what is going out of that department in her name.

-When calling for a centralised independent athlete welfare body, Mike Darcy BG Chair, described the “intractable challenge....(of) a backlog of historic complaints” adding that the NGB “is ill-equipped to handle these sorts of cases. We have neither the expertise nor resources to run a large scale semi-judicial process.” G4C say this acknowledgement some 6 months ago of the ICP failings was merely greeted with a shrug of resignation. We would argue that BG currently seem utterly paralysed and overwhelmed. Small/minor tweaks, adjustments and concessions are not what is needed. What is needed is for the ICP to have a major reboot.

Conclusion:

Fundamental and meaningful reform can only be achieved by learning from past mistakes and as such we are sending this open letter to all parties involved in the ICP. All the concerns we’ve had highlighted to us throughout the year by members involved in the ICP process leads us to believe we are at a precarious tipping point. A G4C delegation has just returned from attending The 2023 Sporting Chance Forum, held in Lausanne, Switzerland, feeling optimistic for the campaigning year ahead but also recognising there are some potential watershed moments. With 2024 looming, G4C want to make NOW the time to stay the current procedures, analyse the cases gone before and open discussions with all its parties, in order to facilitate a major overhaul or reset of the ICP to better serve the gymnastics community.

We look forward to your response by December 22nd 2023, with a view to commencing urgent discussions early in the New Year.

Gymnasts for Change