Sports Coaches (Positions of Trust)

Richard Graham Excerpts

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Westminster Hall

[Tracey Crouch]

I completely agree; DBS checks should not be the be-all and end-all. The legislation adds an extra level of safeguarding.

When I was dealing with the issue as Sports Minister, it was claimed that if the legislation was extended to sports coaches, it would also need to be extended to music teachers, private tutors or, as my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) has called for, driving instructors. My response, as the daughter of a social worker who spent her life dealing with child sexual abuse, is, “Yes it absolutely should be.” I fail to fully understand why it should not.

[Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is making exactly the right case. I have experience of a situation in which a driving instructor had clearly groomed one of my constituents, as well as another case, which is well known to the NSPCC, in which somebody was groomed for a very long time by a sports coach who continues to offer his services.

In truth, we know from recent exposures that the problem is not limited to the UK—it happens around the world—and it is time this country set an example by changing the law. Does my hon. Friend agree that, with a new Justice Minister—my constituency neighbour and hon. Friend the Member for Cheltenham (Alex Chalk)—that would be a great step forward?

[Tracey Crouch]

I agree, and I hope that the Minister is listening and will take positive action. My hon. Friend has done amazing work to highlight the issues with driving instructors and should be congratulated on that. Concerns about the scope of the proscribed list is a poor reason to avoid taking a policy position and changing the positions of trust provisions.

Anyone in a position to influence the direction of another person’s journey through life—meaning that a power balance rests with them—should not be able to abuse that position via a sexual relationship. Someone’s place in the team or time on the pitch, or the competitions in which they are entered, should not be vulnerable to another person’s physical or emotional demands.

The legislation can be easily amended, either by adding to the list or removing it altogether. The Ministry asked for evidence of why change was required and, although evidence was provided, nothing has happened. Earlier this year, The Guardian reported that a freedom of information request had found that between 2014 and 2018, there were 653 cases in which adults who could be regarded as being in a position of trust had had a sexual relationship with a 16 or 17-year-old. Of the 495 cases in which the adult’s role was recorded, the majority were in sport, and the data showed that such incidents had increased.

Sport is doing what it can to prevent dangerous people from working with children and young adults. It has enhanced its safeguarding procedures, as part of the implementation of my sports governance code, and many use enhanced DBS checks. While the loophole exists, however, that in the eyes of the law it is deemed okay to have sex with someone over the age of 16 in your trust in sport, coercive and abusive behaviour will continue and the lives of many more youngsters will be ruined.

When I was a Minister, with the then Home Office and Justice Ministers, we agreed that that change was essential, so the inexplicable delay in implementing that ministerial direction is shameful. I understand that the MOJ is exploring non-legislative solutions but, frankly, that can never solve what is fundamentally a legal problem. It would be a shocking downgrading of the Department’s responsibilities. Guidance is not the law, in that sense.

I appreciate that the Minister was not in the hot seat when officials were finding reasons why not to do that previously, but he is now. As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, now is the time for no more dither, no more delay. We have a duty to act. This legislative loophole needs a legislative solution, and it needs to be done now.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice (Alex Chalk)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Paisley.

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Chatham and Aylesford (Tracey Crouch) for securing this important debate and for her distinguished service as a Minister. Her speech was absolutely in the spirit of that distinguished service.

As my hon. Friend indicated, I have been in post for only a few short weeks, but it is already crystal clear to me that this is an extremely important issue which requires a clear, considered and decisive response. The Government have been reviewing the law in this area. I have said that we should urgently consider all options, including legislative change, and must be in a position to announce next steps by the end of May.

Turning to some basic principles, protecting children and young people from the scourge of sexual abuse and exploitation is a top priority for this Government. Ensuring that the law is effective in providing that protection is not just our priority, but our duty. As most stakeholders acknowledge, however, this area is not without complexity—that is not a reason not to tackle it, but we need to advert to it. I will set out some of the issues and explain why charting the way ahead requires careful thought.

It is worth taking a moment to summarise the state of the existing law. In a short debate, that can only be a brief overview. As we know, sexual activity with a child under 16 is of course always a serious criminal offence, regardless of consent, and non-consensual activity is a crime regardless of the age of the victim or the relationship between the victim and perpetrator.

Alongside those two offences, to turn to positions of trust, the Sexual Offences Act 2003 created a number of offences that specifically target any sexual activity between a 16 or 17-year-old young person and people who hold a defined “position of trust” in respect of that young person, even if such activity is consensual, as my hon. Friend indicated.

Those offences were designed to build on the general child sex offences in the 2003 Act, and are defined to target situations in which the young person has considerable dependency on the adult involved, often combined with an element of vulnerability of the young person. The offences are directed at those who are employed to look after young people under the age of 18, such as those providing care for a young person in a residential care home, a hospital or an educational institution. That particularly adverts to the fact that the state has a role in the child’s development or care.

As my hon. Friend made crystal clear, those offences do not cover all positions in which a person might have contact with, or a supervisory role of, a young person aged under 18. That was a deliberate decision by the Government of the day. In preparation for this debate, I looked up some of the relevant debates. The issue of scope was raised in the other place by Baroness Blatch, a Conservative, on 13 February 2003. She noted that she was “disappointed” that provision had not been made in the Bill to encompass those being supervised as scouts or in youth centres. Interestingly, when responding to her that same day, Lord Falconer said:

“I understand the noble Baroness’s argument, but a line has to be drawn somewhere and we think that is the right place”.—[Official Report, House of Lords, 13 February 2003; Vol. 644, c. 878.]

My sense is that that judgment may well be wrong but, in fairness to the noble lord, it is not a straightforward one to make. What is at stake here is a need to balance the legal right, as prescribed by Parliament, for young persons aged 16 and over to consent to sexual activity, with the proper desire to protect vulnerable young people from manipulation.

Another complicating feature is the evolving case law in the area. In certain situations, the criminal division of the Court of Appeal has already been clear that supposed consent may be vitiated or even negated, thereby creating a criminal offence in any event. To put that in plain English and to give an example, in the case of McNally, deception by a defendant as to her sex—she falsely claimed she was a man—was held to vitiate the victim’s consent to intercourse.

That is important because, as the Crown Prosecution Service now indicates in its charging decisions, in certain circumstances that ruling could apply where perpetrators were in a position of power in which they could abuse their trust over a victim. If we look at the CPS charging decision—in other words, when making a decision about whether there truly was consent in a relationship—one of the matters that has to be considered is:

“Where the suspect was in a position of power where they could abuse their trust, especially because of their position or status—e.g. a family member, teacher, religious leader, employer, gang member, carer, doctor”.

The point is that it is no longer necessarily automatically good enough for the defendant to say, “Look, she consented”, if in fact that will was suborned in some way. That might well be a very proper reason why the CPS could conclude that there had been no consent.

[Richard Graham]

On that point, does the list of categories for the CPS to consider include or exclude—or is it neutral on—the issue of sports coaches, music teachers and driving instructors, for example?

[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend makes a characteristically pertinent point. That is a non-exhaustive list, which is an important consideration to bear in mind. The proper points that he made are not lost completely on some charging prosecutors, and that is an important part of the context.