Ex-football coach Barry Bennell ’predatory paedophile with unfettered access to boys’

Former football coach Barry Bennell was a "predatory and determined" paedophile who engaged in systematic abuse of young boys, a UK court has heard.

Ex-football coach Barry Bennell ’predatory paedophile with unfettered access to boys’

Former football coach Barry Bennell was a "predatory and determined" paedophile who engaged in systematic abuse of young boys, a UK court has heard.

The 63-year-old appeared at Liverpool Crown Court via video-link today, accused of 48 counts of child sexual abuse.

Nicholas Johnson QC, prosecuting, told the court that the ex-Crewe Alexandra coach, who has since changed his name to Richard Jones, worked as a youth football coach in Cheshire, Manchester and Derbyshire in the late 1970s and into the 1990s.

Mr Johnson said: "As such, he had pretty much unfettered access to large numbers of young lads who dreamt of a life in professional football.

"Although it seems that Mr Jones, or Mr Bennell, was a skilled and relatively successful coach, we allege that he had a much darker side.

"He was also, we say, a predatory and determined paedophile: his particular predilection was pre-pubescent boys".

Mr Johnson said some of the abuse took place at the ground of Crewe Alexandra and when the football club was on tour, while many of the incidents also took place at his home addresses.

Bennell is charged with offences including indecent assault, buggery and attempted buggery on boys aged between eight and 14.

The jury, made up of seven women and five men, was told that Bennell was appearing in court via video-link because he needs to be fed through a tube as a result of illness.

They heard that, if he gave evidence during the trial, he would be present in court.

Ahead of his trial starting on Monday, Bennell pleaded guilty to six counts of indecent assault.

A reporting restriction on a guilty plea to a charge of indecent assault entered at an earlier hearing was lifted by Recorder of Liverpool Judge Clement Goldstone QC.

The seven offences Bennell has admitted relate to three victims and happened between 1981 and 1991, when they were aged between 11 and 14.

The prosecutor told jurors that part of the evidence they would hear concerned serious sexual allegations made in the past against Bennell by young footballers in England and Wales, and also in the United States.

He said that, as a result of some of those allegations, the defendant had pleaded guilty to a number of sex offences and had served prison sentences in this jurisdiction and in the US.

When interviewed about the allegations he currently faces, said Mr Johnson, from time to time the defendant said people were making things up about him and using details they had gleaned from the internet - put there by youth footballers who previously made complaints of serious sexual misconduct against him.

Mr Johnson said: "He alleged that he is now in effect the victim of a concerted effort by people from the past to make false allegations against him.

"He suggested that when, in the past, he had been arrested for serious sexual offending, he had admitted what he had done."

Mr Johnson told jurors they may have already heard that Bennell had admitted some sexual offending against three people in this case.

Those were admissions of mutual masturbation, said the prosecutor, but Bennell is also accused of much more serious offending including both oral sex and buggery - which would be categorised these days as male rape.

He told jurors they would have to decide in evidence whether they were listening to a group of men who, as Bennell alleges, had "jumped on the bandwagon" and maliciously made up stories, or if they agreed with the Crown’s case that a devious paedophile was committing serious sexual offences on a large scale and over a long period of time against "very vulnerable lads".

Mr Johnson added: "In those circumstances we will suggest in due course that it is no surprise either that the extent of his offending has taken so long to emerge or that there is repetition in the way, we allege, he committed his offences."

The jury was told one alleged victim had been abused by Bennell on more than 100 occasions after meeting him when he was a scout for Manchester City.

Mr Johnson said the complainant and other boys would stay at Bennell’s house, which he said at first seemed an "attractive proposition" for the youngsters.

He said: "Not only was there the promise of high quality football, but they were given lots of sports kit and allowed to eat takeaway food."

Bennell denied sexual contact with the complainant when questioned by police and told them he was "one who got away with it".

The court heard Bennell would "play fight" with the boys, put on horror films for them and play a game with them called Follow Me, where they would mirror his actions and he would increase degrees of intimacy to gauge whether they would be compliant to abuse.

The complainant alleged he would turn the lights off once the boys were in bed and would play music to mask the sound of the abuse, the court heard.

Continuing his summary of the complaints, Mr Johnson said one alleged victim said he was abused by Bennell in his Mercedes car as he took him to and from training sessions, as well as at his home and on football tours.

Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook of Barry Bennell appearing via videolink at Liverpool Crown Court today
Court artist sketch by Elizabeth Cook of Barry Bennell appearing via videolink at Liverpool Crown Court today

But Bennell denied the allegations and said at the time the abuse was alleged to have happened he had been abusing two other boys.

He told police he had been attracted to 13-year-old boys because they were "pedigree footballers who were athletic and good looking".

The court heard Bennell would lose interest in boys as they reached puberty, something he admitted when being interviewed about the allegations.

Another complainant said he felt he had been groomed and "desensitised" by Jones who said he would make him a professional footballer.

He alleged that Bennell went on to commit "relentless" serious sexual assaults against him at the defendant’s home.

The complainant recalled the last time he was allegedly abused was the "worst day of his life" after he met Bennell to discuss signing forms for Manchester City.

After falling asleep he woke to find Bennell had removed his shorts and was trying to penetrate him, which he succeeded at, the court heard.

The court was told that the following morning the youngster said to Bennell: "What would you do if I told on you?" to which the defendant allegedly replied: "It wouldn’t matter, nobody would believe you. I’ve got people playing professional football now that I’ve done these things to - you’re nothing."

A further complainant, who claims he was indecently assaulted on numerous occasions, said he regularly stayed at Bennell’s address at weekends while playing for one of his youth teams.

He described the defendant’s home as being like "an arcade with all the machines", the court heard.

The court heard that when being questioned about the alleged offences Bennell had told police he had memory problems because he was suffering from cancer.

He described one complainant as having a financial motive for making allegations against him, the court heard.

Mr Johnson told the jury another of Bennell’s alleged victims had described being "groomed" and "coerced" by him.

The complainant had told someone about the alleged abuse but had then received a letter from Bennell on Crewe Alexandra headed notepaper asking him why he was spreading rumours, the court heard.

Mr Johnson said: "He told him that football was a small world and trouble causers did not go far."

Another complainant, who said he too was subjected to a campaign of serious sexual assault, gave a very similar account to others, said the prosecutor.

Horror films were played to "soften up the lads" who were all impressed by his "menagerie of pets" which included a wild cat and even a monkey, the court was told.

He alleged he was abused on one occasion in the changing rooms at Crewe Alexandra’s ground following a youth team game when Bennell put his hand in his shorts, the court heard.

That alleged incident was interrupted by a team-mate who Bennell then pinned against a wall and threatened he would never play football again if he spoke of what he witnessed, the jury was told.

Bennell is also alleged to have performed oral sex on another youth footballer in the club’s changing rooms.

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