WHEN Charlie Webster joined a running club at 12, she found an escape from her troubled homelife and dreamed of becoming an Olympic athlete.But over the next few years her dream turned to a nightmare as the Sheffield club’s respected coach groomed her and subjected her to horrific sexual assault.
Charlie Webster was groomed by her coach after joining a running club at 12
The teen athlete was abused by coach Paul North
Now a successful journalist and broadcaster, 38, covering the biggest events in world sport for Sky Sport and BBC1, this was one story she has been unable to tell – until now.
Ahead of her powerful BBC documentary Nowhere To Run, which airs tonight, Charlie tells The Sun how coach Paul North arranged “private training sessions” before “massaging” her breasts and groin and penetrating her with his fingers.
After campaigning for abuse victims with the charity Women’s Aid, and encouraging victims to speak about their experiences, she decided she had to reveal her own trauma to help others.
“How could I encourage others to talk about it, and say there’s no shame, when I felt horrifically ashamed myself,” she says.
“It felt hypocritical. I really struggled with it but I now realise how important it is to speak your own truth.”
It was only when North was jailed for 10 years, when Charlie was 19, that she realised she was not his only victim and, in the course of the documentary, she discovers her closest friends at the club were also abused – with one being raped multiple times.
An email from the mother of a former best friend, who had been raped multiple times by Charlie’s abuser, spurred her on to make the programme.
She also contacted the mother of another club member, who had tragically taken her own life at 18.
Charlie kept silent about the abuse for 20 years and says she was too ashamed to speak out, blaming herself.
“That blame and guilt dominated me, and left me with low self-esteem, struggling in relationships, struggling with trust,” she says.
“I felt ashamed and isolated and sank into depression. I always felt I’d be judged, like I was broken and people would immediately think, ‘she’s a bit messed up,’ so I held it in.
“Throughout my career, I tried to be what I thought I should be – a smiley, confident person – but inside there was a part of me which didn’t like myself.
“You can’t live your life like that because it’s exhausting, it’s chaotic and it’s damaging.”
Groomed from the age of 12
Living in Sheffield with a violent and controlling stepdad, who terrorised Charlie and mum, Joy, she was a talented athlete at school and, at 12, she was encouraged to join the all-girls running club in her hometown.
She soon found a close network of friends as well as a passion for running which took her mind off her problems, and she looked up to North as a man who could help achieve her Olympic dream.
“I was very guarded about saying anything that was going on at home, I didn’t tell anyone,’ she says.
“But when I ran, it felt like a safe place to let the emotion spill out in frustration, anger, or upset and the coach would put his arm around me to console me.
“He befriended me and I opened up about some of my struggles at home so when the abuse started, it was confusing.”
After a while, North suggested private training sessions in the hall of the primary school where he worked as a caretaker.
It was there that the regular ‘massages’ began.
I trusted him completely, so when the abuse began, I was scared, confused and embarrassed.Charlie Webster
“The physical abuse started when I was 14, but there was a lot of manipulation and grooming before that,” she says.
“I was so embedded and ingrained in the club. I relied on him. I wanted to win, I wanted to be the best.
“I trusted him completely, so when the abuse began, I was scared, confused and embarrassed.”
Charlie and her running club friends as teenagers
Charlie tracked down her old clubmates and Georgina’s mum Jean for the programme
‘Massages’ lead to shocking assault
After each training session, the coach would take Charlie into a classroom where he made her lie on a table for the massages, telling her it would help her on the track.
“It started with massages for a tight hamstring, then he began massaging the groin and the breasts, telling me I was really tight in the chest area and needed to loosen up my lungs,” says Charlie.
“I was a child, I wasn’t sexualised, so I didn’t understand what was going on.
“He smiled at me the whole time and reassured me that it was the best for me which is really confusing for a young girl who absolutely trusts that person.”
Charlie was so afraid of her stepdad that she would sometimes wet herself in her bedroom rather than go to the toilet, because he would explode with rage if she made a noise.
As a result she developed a bladder problem – which North used as an excuse to take the abuse further.
“My issues with going to the loo became a problem in training and my coach told me the muscles around my bladder were weak and he could help’,” she says.
“That was the first time he told me to take my pants off, he moved my knickers with one hand, with quite a lot of pressure, and put his fingers inside me.
“I remember feeling really uncomfortable but I desperately wanted the problem to go away.”
Girls abused on Spain trip
North’s harsh training methods and pitting the girls against each other also created such a competitive environment that tears and vomiting were common after races.
In shocking footage from a training trip to Spain, shown in the documentary, teenage runners lie, collapsed and crying, around the track as he bends down to comfort them.
Charlie, then 17, was among several runners North abused on that trip, but his skill at isolating the girls and setting them against each other meant they never shared their secret.
“There were always girls crying and it was normalised to be sick after a race,” she says. “If I wasn’t sick after a training session, then I wasn’t good enough.
If I wasn’t sick after a training session, then I wasn’t good enough. Charlie Webster
“He would also play me off against my best friend, wrapping his arm around her and pulling her away, saying things to split us up because he realised we were getting close.
“Everything he did was to get to the physical act of abuse.”
North was finally brought to book in 2002, after a 15-year-old victim who he stripped and assaulted told her father, who reported him to the police.
He was jailed for 10 years, and has since been released.
Charlie is calling for action to stop abuse in sportCredit: The Sun
The presenter had a troubled home life
‘I’ll never forgive him’
Charlie’s best friend at the time, who isn’t named in the documentary because of ongoing mental health struggles, was one of two girls who finally testified against North about being raped multiple times, including in her own home.
Her mother tells Charlie: “She never got over it. She’s not had a life for 20 years.
“He got a prison sentence but he still came out and lived his life. My daughter’s had none of that. I’ll never forgive him, I’ll take it to my grave and my daughter will take it to her grave.”
Another of the group, Georgina, left the club shortly after the Spanish camp and took her own life at 18.
She never told her family of any abuse but mum Jean says she became withdrawn and said she’d had an argument with North.
“For her to give up running, I always thought something had happened because she loved it,’ she says.
“I lost her at that point. You couldn’t get to her any longer. She got more and more depressed and she overdosed.”
Victims scared to speak up
Even after North’s arrest, Charlie was not approached by either the governing body, UK Athletics, or the police and she believes the system is still failing to support girls today by refusing to take tougher action on perpetrators.
“There were allegations about another coach, nine years ago, who got a rap on the knuckles and was allowed to carry on coaching,” she says.
“I have a whistle blower in my film, Martin Slevin, who was chair of a Coventry running club and a serving police officer and was completely ostracised when he raised the issue of a coach and his relationship with a 15-year-old.
“How do we expect a child to speak out when a grown man in a position of power gets bullied out because he’s raised a red flag?
“Coaches who are found to have abused one young athlete are often given a temporary ban which means the DBS checks are rendered useless, and they can often return to coach again.
“Abuse is a pattern of behaviour and there’s rarely one victim – they keep on abusing until somebody stops them.
“Even a lifetime ban in one sport doesn’t prevent them coaching in another, because there is no universal register.
“There is a person today who was banned for life from an education setting, but is now coaching young kids at a sports club, because there’s no information sharing.”
Charlie says the recent case of US gymnastics doctor Larry Nasser, whose abuse of 330 women and girls is currently the subject of a hearing in the Senate, brought her memories flooding back.
“When I read the testimony of the first girl that came forward, it was like reading my own experience,” she says.
“It gave me goosebumps and I felt sick. It demonstrates the common patterns of behaviour that abusers use to manipulate their victims.”
For the documentary, Charlie spoke to members of her former club – including some who were not abused – and learned that, like her, most carried a sense of guilt that they didn’t speak up at the time, or didn’t know their friends were being harmed.
But she says the film helped her shift the blame onto the real perpetrator.
“This is not my guilt to carry, this is none of our guilt to carry,” she says. “This is his guilt and finally I’m starting to recognise that.
“I’m actually proud of everything I’ve gone through that I’m still here today rather than ashamed of it. I’ve turned it on its head.”
Charlie, backed by the NSPCC, is now calling for a major overhaul of the safeguarding system across all sports.
She is calling for an overhaul of the DBS check system, to allow all potential employees and clubs to be informed of previous allegations and mandatory reporting by governing bodies when allegations of abuse arise.
Charlie’s campaign for change
In her campaign, backed by the NSPCC, Charlie is calling for:
The creation of a central register/licensing scheme for coaches across all sports, informing employees and clubs if allegations of misconduct have been made about coaches.
A Government review of the criminal record and intelligence checking system, to address flaws in the current DBS checks which allow coaches and former teachers with temporary or lifetimes bans to coach in a different sport or setting.
A resource for young people to query signs and red flags and read anecdotes that may relate to what is happening to them, so they can understand when behaviour is inappropriate or abusive.
An extension of Position of Trust legislation to make any sexual contact between a coach and a 16 and 17 in their care illegal.
Sir Peter Wanless, CEO of the NSPCC said:
“We commend Charlie for bravely opening up about the abuse she experienced at the hands of her sports coach, in this powerful new documentary.
“To protect children, we need to see a major change to how coaches are registered across all sports and Governments of the UK must review the criminal record checking, known as the DBS in England.
“Children and young people need a place where they can query signs and red flags, and understand what good coaching is, versus what is abuse and must be reported.”
After 20 years of repressing her memories, Charlie worked with a psychologist to help her come to terms with her trauma and has recently been diagnosed with PTSD.
“I’ve now got perspective, which I didn’t have before, and I would urge anyone who’s ever experienced anything like this to talk to a trusted person or a professional, because it’s the best thing that I ever did in my life,” she says.
“It made me realise that what I was feeling was normal because of what I’ve been through and that none of it was my fault. I was a child. It’s given me some peace and understanding that he didn’t target me because I’m not good enough, I’m worthless. I was just another person he chose to abuse.”
Charlie now hopes the BBC documentary, and her ongoing campaign, will help protect the athletes of the future.
“People often say ‘if it just helps one person….’, but that’s not enough,” she says.
“We need to implement real change, because I’m sick of telling stories about abuse and I don’t want to be talking about more cases of abuse in another 20 years.”
Nowhere To Run: Abused By Our Coach is on BBC3 and airs on BBC1 tonight at 10.35pm.
WHERE TO GET HELPWhenever it happened to you, it’s never too late to get support.
If you’ve ever experienced sexual violenceor sexual abuse, you can get confidential support from specialists who will listen to you, believe you and understand how hard it is to talk about.
As a victim, you’re entitled to support whether you report the crime or not. Your rights are set out in full in the Victims’ Code.
Visit gov.uk/sexualabusesupport to see the support on offer.
Charlie with teammate Becky, who appears in the documentary
Charlie has joined forces with the NSPCCCredit: BBC More
