Emotional & Physical Abuse in a BG Gym: The Complaint That Achieved…Nothing

What follows is a complaint letter sent to the Ethics & Welfare Officer at British Gymnastics in 2015. It paints a vivid and disturbing picture of life in an abusive gym. It was written within days of the children being withdrawn. Further incidents were provided in follow up emails along with the full contact details of the parents of several of the other children identified, This was done with the full permission of those involved. They wanted to speak to BG but were scared to initiate the conversation. BG never called them. No discernible action was taken.

[Names have been redacted]

To the Ethics & Welfare Officer, British Gymnastics,

I apologise at the length of this but it involves 4 + children over nearly 5 years. I have tried to give as much detail as possible regarding recent incidents so that the intensity of the bullying can be appreciated. I also have tried to make this as coherent as possible but putting this together has been quite exhausting so I am afraid that it is still rather disjointed, so please bear with me.

I had four daughters in the club. [D1], [D2], [D3] and [D4]. The two elder girls nearly 15 and just turned 13 joined about 4.5 years ago now and the two younger ones, 8 ½ and just turned 7, as they became old enough. Gymnastics is a huge part of their identity, they love it and have worked hard at it and have invested a huge part of themselves into the sport and into their club. My children are devastated both at how they have been treated and what they have lost. For my daughter with Ehlers Danlos Type III gymnastics has also been her physiotherapy which is vital for her wellbeing and ability to cope with the demands of daily life. She can’t really do any other sports as they are too hard on her joints. Sadly, the bullying that had always gone on much much worse and I could sense a growing campaign against my children over the past months. And hard as it has been to do this and knowing that I can’t afford to take them anywhere else, I have had to, for their safety and wellbeing, pull them out of the club.

Since leaving [ABUSIVE COACH 1] has sent me an email in which she blames my children for her behaviour. I have included a copy of the email with my comments as it further illustrates some of the points I am trying to make.

After treating my husband and daughter with petty contempt when they went to fetch our belongings on Friday, [ABUSIVE COACH 1] then also had the audacity to text me unbelievably asking if I would allow my 14 year old [D1] to continue volunteering to coach on Saturdays, offering to arrange transport etc. I didn’t tell [D1] about the texts as I knew it would greatly upset her. This has been a huge loss for [D1] who LOVES her coaching and is extremely good at it. In fact her first and greatest worry on leaving [THE CLUB] was letting down the SEN children she teaches and she felt very low indeed. I didn’t respond to the texts. So then [ABUSIVE COACH 1] had her younger daughter, to text my daughter directly to try and manipulate her. The result was having to sit up until 1am with my sobbing and distraught daughter.

Ultimately, [THE CLUB] is absolutely not a safe place, either physically or emotionally, for children.

While much of this document will specify [ABUSIVE COACH 1] who is arrogant, delusional, enormously unprofessional, an inveterate liar and above all, a terrible bully who admits herself that she doesn’t like children; her daughter [ABUSIVE COACH 2] is an equal if not worse bully who is a little better at hiding this from parents because she doesn’t ‘hold court’ in the waiting area in the same way her mother does. I fear [ABUSIVE COACH 1]’s younger daughter [COACH 3] who is also a coach, is sadly but inevitably going the same way.

Children are sneered at, belittled, treated with disgust, shouted at, screamed at, excluded and isolated in the gym, thrown out of the gym in disgrace, disparaged to their faces and behind their backs, verbally threatened with physical violence, traumatised by witnessing this happen to others, scared to say in they are ill or in pain, punished because of perceived transgressions by their parents (such as saying my child isn’t very well today), called names (‘Larry loser last’, brat, muppet, ‘waste of space’ etc). There is a climate of fear. Any children who are absent (in their mind unnecessarily) through injury or illness or who have been thrown out or excluded are loudly briefed against by [ABUSIVE COACH 1] and [ABUSIVE COACH 2] to all the children who are left in no doubt that they must not transgress in the same way.

When [ABUSIVE COACH 1] is angry or in one of her foul moods she threatens that she will “kill them” “punch them in the face” and while they might not quite believe that she will do it (or at least they HOPE she won’t) they know from her growling tone that she is angry and they are genuinely frightened at what might happen. Sometimes the “I’ll kill you threat” is made with a joking tone but as often as not it is snarled in anger.

[ABUSIVE COACH 1] frequently maligns other coaches, other gyms and BG itself. She has told us in the past of a coaches who are known by BG to be a abusive and yet are still allowed to coach, the message is ”if you think we’re bad, there are many that are worse and BG won’t do anything”. She recently attended a BG Safeguarding course.  Before it she was loudly complaining to the gymnasts that it was a ‘waste of time’ because she had to go every three years and that she already knew everything. After this particular course they made some small changes such as not contacting the gymnasts directly but all the bullying stayed the same as it has always been. Neither [ABUSIVE COACH 1] nor [ABUSIVE COACH 2] has ever admitted that they have gone over the top and they always blame the child or the parent for their behaviour. Other times they simply lie and say it didn’t happen. [REDACTED SECTION MENTIONING PREVIOUS CLUBS AND CONNECTION TO KNOWN ABUSERS]

BG must be aware of the type of coach that she is, as if I remember correctly from her boasting, that she failed the beam module on her High Performance specifically because, even when on best behaviour, she couldn’t hold back from disparaging her gymnast. She was ‘boasting ‘ because she was contemptuous of the ‘positive style’ of coaching she was expected to demonstrate  because she believes that BG accepts that this is not how you make great gymnasts and that such displays (of encouraging coaching) are only for show.

[ABUSIVE COACH 1], frequently ‘holds court’ in the waiting area and launches into disparaging tirades against children in front of anyone and everyone. In a recent meeting for squad parents she warned among many other things that:

• Parents were not allowed to wait in the gym for their children – if parents remained in the waiting area she said she would sit out in there to make sure that we were not talking about her
• We were warned not to complain to coaches otherwise this “would be taken out on the children”

Not everyone is bullied. It is very open that there are “favourites”. To be one you generally have to be pretty ([ABUSIVE COACH 1] boasts how she picks the pretty children for advancement), vivacious, preferably mixed race (very openly stated), and have parents who won’t complain. Recently, the Aunt of one of the younger development children said she was being probed by [ABUSIVE COACH 1] as to how “hard they could push” her niece which she found very alarming.

It is common practice to bully children that they have contempt for, into quitting. When we first arrived at the gym some years ago it had only just been set up with a lot of help and support from a group of parents who moved with [ABUSIVE COACH 1] from [ANOTHER CLUB]. One parent, who happened to have a van, proved very useful. However, once the need for this facility diminished, [ABUSIVE COACH 1] began ‘working on’ the child to try and get her to quit. She was very open about this to other parents AND children to whom she would also disparage the girl saying how useless she was. She would ignore and shout at her in equal measure until eventually she got the message and quit. We have seen this happen countless times since – it creates additional anxiety and fear because the children (who want to belong and stay with their friends) are afraid they are the next to be bullied out.

They also know that once they are chucked out that [ABUSIVE COACH 1] and [ABUSIVE COACH 2] will be compounding the humiliation by trying to justify their actions by bad mouthing the excluded child. The purpose of these ‘briefings’ against their squad mates is too teach the gymnasts the ‘rules’ such as:

1. Don’t complain to your parents
2. Don’t let your parents complain to us or you will suffer (through being ignored, belittled, mocked etc)
3. Don’t miss gym for any reason
4. Don’t be tired
5. Don’t be sick
6. Don’t make mistakes

etc, etc, etc

As mentioned, not all children are directly bullied and not all children appeared bothered by it but even if a particular child isn’t being bullied, simply witnessing the abuse of others either traumatises the child or perhaps worse, desensitises them to it making them more liable to treat others in that way or to simply accept it if it happens to them.

For my family, my second daughter [D2] has recently borne the brunt of [ABUSIVE COACH 1] and [ABUSIVE DAUGHTER COACH]’s anger:

Daughter #2 [D2]

This daughter has always been treated very badly. She has been routinely excluded from training and even from competition. It has often happened that she has trained hard for months towards a competition only to be binned the night before as a punishment for some transgression. This has happened so frequently that we learned never assumed she was competing until we arrived at the venue! For example, at the beginning of Y7 in her new school there is a 3 day 2 night adventurous training camp during the school week for the children to bond and get to know each other. Despite the fact that children only came home at lunchtime the day before a competition it was agreed she could go because “she was ready” for the comp. I asked if I should bring her in on the day she got back warning that she would likely be extremely tired and they said yes, it would only be a light session. As expected, she was beyond exhausted but was excited to get back in the gym nonetheless. It didn’t go well; she was screamed at as usual, and was duly scratched from the competition. Again, this is just one example of many.

And when she was allowed to compete it was never allowed to be a positive experience. If she fell she was derided but equally if she did well this was met with scorn. At a competition last year or so [D2] competed really well and deservedly beat her much favoured teammate. [ABUSIVE COACH 1]/[ABUSIVE COACH 2] were so angered by this that in the line-up of the following gym session [D2] was ordered to give her medal to her teammate.

She was also so frequently shouted at in front of other gymnasts and parents that [ABUSIVE COACH 1] began to boast to everyone (including parents) that she often screamed at [D2] even when she had done nothing wrong.

For a very long time there was little attention paid and relatively few hours given to [D2] and her ‘grades’ teammates, the focus being very much on the two elite gymnasts, but some months back it was announced that my daughter and her squad mate would be entered for The English Championships. My daughter worked extremely hard towards this. Her hours were increased ([ABUSIVE COACH 1] wrote to her school to ask for Wednesday afternoons  off which was agreed) and she fought hard to acquire the new moves she needed. Unfortunately having developed Sever’s disease this meant that training often left her barely able to walk to the car. She grazed her face and smashed her braces trying to land her new double back etc and still kept trying without complaining (if they say that something hurts they are punished for doing so by being mocked, accused of being lazy and excluded). The pressure was immense and the training atmosphere even more tense and unpleasant than usual.

Sadly, the competition didn’t go well for my daughter, in large part because she was so scared about how she’d be treated if she made mistakes that she was literally terrified from the moment they arrived at the venue And she was right to be worried. Back at the club [ABUSIVE COACH 1], watching the live feed, was announcing to all how useless my daughter was and that she’d never compete for the club again. [ABUSIVE COACH 2] told her and her teammates that [D2] clearly hadn’t taken the competition seriously or tried hard enough.

Understandably my daughter was very down after this experience. She was told what had been said by [ABUSIVE COACH 1] and was repeatedly directly told by both [ABUSIVE COACH 1]/[ABUSIVE COACH 2] that she wouldn’t compete for the club again and would be moved to ‘Super Group’ (a 9 hour per week ‘squad’ of mainly older girls who effectively coach themselves). The following week my daughter competed at the regional qualifiers for national grades. She came second overall (her teammate came first) but during the medal ceremony, [ABUSIVE COACH 1] shouted out disparaging comments about my daughter when she was called out for her medal.

[D2] became more and more despondent and confused. On one hand she was being told she was about to be ‘demoted’ but on the other hand [ABUSIVE COACH 2] was still demanding that she master big FIG skills. My daughter became more and more frightened to try because as usual, mistakes were met with contempt, disgust and belittlement and very often, being thrown out in disgrace.  Over the Easter holidays she was thrown out most if not every day. At one all-day session she lasted less than an hour. There was no communication from the coach and I was left at my wits’ end as to how best to support my daughter. After she had missed over 10 hours of training I came to talk to her coach [ABUSIVE DAUGHTER COACH]. We had what I thought was a friendly productive conversation. [ABUSIVE COACH 2] said she didn’t want [D2] to quit and why she was pushing her to do ‘big’ moves. I was very careful about what I said as I knew that even a whiff of criticism about how my daughter was being treated would result in me being shouted at and my daughter being punished in the gym. I told [ABUSIVE COACH 2] how low [D2] was and that for the first time ever had not wanted to come into gym. And I asked if they could please offer her a little encouragement (something they NEVER get) to get her to her last ever National Grades Finals. My hope was, as I explained to [ABUSIVE DAUGHTER COACH], that the competition (which [D2] was looking forward too) would go well enough that my daughter could make a decision from a more positive place. As mentioned I thought the meeting went well and went home to encourage my daughter to push through the next few weeks trying as hard as she could and backing her coach 100%.

The following session, rather than encourage her they both began to stick the boot in. [ABUSIVE COACH 1] now shouted that she now felt stupid and embarrassed for having written to the school saying she was a “good gymnast”. [ABUSIVE COACH 2] belittled and ignored her and frequently separated her from the others. She wasn’t allowed to progress some of the moves that she HAD been making good progress on. She was derided for being fearful of trying some of the big moves that her teammate (a ‘favourite’) was not being asked to do. It was shouted that she should go and do team gym or sports acro (which are held in contempt) and so on and so on and so on. And just two weeks before the National Finals I told them she was excited about,  [ABUSIVE COACH 2] cut her hours, and in particular dropped her from the Wednesday afternoon sessions where they received more coaching (for which we had to get permission from school) for being an ‘embarrassment and a ‘poor example’.  I tried to talk to [ABUSIVE COACH 1] and [ABUSIVE COACH 2] about it and they wouldn’t budge and also asked me to tell my children that they “owed” [ABUSIVE COACH 1] because of the discount we were getting.

[D2] did as well as possible in the final given the dreadful run up to it. Finally, on the Monday after National Grades Finals, [D2] asked me to text [ABUSIVE COACH 1] and [ABUSIVE COACH 2] to say she wanted to talk to them that night about moving to Super Group. [ABUSIVE COACH 2] wasn’t there so [ABUSIVE COACH 1] said [D2] had to come in specially to talk to them the following night, Tuesday. [D2] says they were uncharacteristically ‘nice’ to her and tried to persuade her to compete in the FIG team in the upcoming Teams championships and was sent away to think about it. However, [D2] knew from long experience that they were just manipulating her and she knew she could no longer cope with trying to gain new moves under their kind of bullying coaching. She returned the following night, half way through the session because of a late school trip) went directly in to see [ABUSIVE COACH 1] and confirm with her that she wanted to be in the Level 3 team, was told she was a ‘big girl’s blouse’ and sent to get on with training. During the session she could sense [ABUSIVE COACH 1]’s anger with her rising and she was told she was so useless she probably wouldn’t even make the level 3 team. This was the session when she screamed abuse at and threw out [D2]’s younger sister [D3] (detailed elsewhere).

At the next session (Friday) as soon as she walked in the gym [ABUSIVE COACH 1] looked at her in an “angry” manner. [ABUSIVE COACH 1] soon pulled her over to say “I am really disappointed and angry at you and your attitude and behaviour ….It was really rude of you to walk straight passed [ABUSIVE COACH 2] on Wednesday without saying thank you for coaching you for 5 years” (no other child who has moved groups in this way has been expected to thank the coach in this way – it was simply anger that [D2] wasn’t doing what they wanted for their benefit). During the session while doing lines [D2] says she was handled very roughly, her arms grabbed and shoved into position with a sneer. She has been there for nearly 5 years so she knows what to expect in regards to physical correction. It was a very unpleasant session when it was clear [D2] couldn’t do anything right. She came out of the session sobbing in despair. She wanted to go back in to try and apologise to [ABUSIVE COACH 2] but another parent persuaded her not to as, in that parent’s long experience at the club, it would have been futile (because she knew the lack of a thank you was not the problem) and would have led to further humiliation for my daughter. Here is the text I received the next day from that parent (my husband did the gym pick-up that night)

“It’s disgusting– apparently not just [D2] but back on [D1] as well – it’s a serious case of bullying and it cannot go on. You really need to get them out of there and into a healthier atmosphere – she does not have the right to behave in the way towards children…Even [CLUB SECRETARY]  looked contrite – but we all just shrug our shoulders in despair as we don’t know what to do. [D2] wanted to go back in last night but I told her not to and to go home – she was sobbing and I didn’t think going back in to them to apologise for something she hasn’t done would gain her anything except more humiliation. I’m glad you weren’t there to see it as I know you’re already at your wits end. The woman just keeps reaching all time lows”

As the text mentions that my older daughter [D1] was also picked on that same evening (detailed elsewhere).

On the following Monday morning I finally took [D2] to the GP about her Sever’s. He was very firm with her indeed and was VERY adamant that she needed to stop doing any gym at all if she was to get the pain under any control otherwise she might need immobilisation boots. In that evening’s session she tried to explain what the doctor had said but was told that “rest doesn’t help”… “when I was an athlete I just worked through it” and she was made to join in with the full session and do everything the others did. She was very upset when she came out and as usual, in a lot of pain.

On the Wednesday, on the drive to gym she practised what she was going to say about resting her feet as she was very scared of being thrown out. She bravely asked to speak to [ABUSIVE COACH 1] at the beginning of the session and tried again to explain what the doctor had said. [ABUSIVE COACH 1] was angry and said she shouldn’t have bothered coming in, actually, usual practice has always been for injured athletes to come in and do whatever they CAN do. She asked if she could do conditioning and was told “yeah, but don’t waste my time”. [ABUSIVE COACH 1] then joined [ABUSIVE COACH 2] where they loudly laughed and sneered together about [D2] and Severs etc. Eventually she was sent to bars and started working but before she could complete her routines, [ABUSIVE COACH 2] came to bars with her squad and [D2] thought it best to stay out of their way and went to the U bar to do other work on turns until she could return to the main bar to finish. But once [ABUSIVE COACH 2] finished she sent them all to condition on the tumble track. In line up at the end [ABUSIVE COACH 1] asked everyone what the procedure was on bars and then rounded on [D2] for not doing what she should have. [D2] wasn’t allowed to try and explain. [ABUSIVE COACH 1] then said “I can’t cope with you…we will have to come up with some other arrangement” In other words she was being thrown out of the group/squad. She came out either having been bullied or forced out of the sport she loves. She was sobbing again and that was it..

So, my daughter has been forced to give up on high level gymnastics not because she wants the time to do other things, not because she doesn’t want to push herself to develop further as a gymnast, not because she doesn’t like gymnastics anymore – she loves it, she is being forced to give up because she realises that she can no longer cope with the constant bullying, belittlement and humiliation.

Other recent incidents involving my girls have been:

• [D4]: My older daughter [D1] had warned me that [ABUSIVE COACH 1] was starting to pick on my youngest daughter [D4] who has recently turned seven. Just before her birthday, so still only 6, she made a mistake on floor beam (she says she ‘fell on her head by accident’). She was shouted at and given twenty V-sits as punishment conditioning, something they are used to, and as it happens, something [D4] is very good at. But on this occasion [D4] felt unwell and during the conditioning began to cry. This was interpreted as “brattiness” by [ABUSIVE COACH 1] so she was further screamed at and sent to sit on the ‘naughty bench’. She was not allowed to re-join her group and had to sit there for the rest of the session. My daughter, as well as feeling ill,  felt totally crushed and mortified at the accusation that she was complaining about the punishment and tried desperately to fight back the tears but, understandably, continued to look rather distressed in the line-up at the end of the session – this resulted in the coach threatening to “slap that look off your face”.

• [D1]: My daughter [D1], (no longer in the elite squad) was screamed at and thrown out of the gym (again, far from the first time). She suffers from a physical disability (Ehlers Danlos Type III) of which the club are very well aware. It means that she has loose joints, is physically weak, finds it very difficult to gain muscle and strength, fatigues easily and is in constant pain. All that said, she has never allowed this to stop her and ploughs on despite knowing that she has to work 5 times as hard as anyone else for half the gains. For example, when training for national grades finals my daughter would often do the same conditioning as everyone and then do extra sets of burpees, squats, frog-stretch-jumps all while wearing a 20kg weighted vest! On this particular occasion (one of many), she was conditioning with the others doing floor leg lifts. Her legs were literally trembling and quaking with the effort she was making, yet [ABUSIVE COACH 2] screamed at her for not doing it well enough and [ABUSIVE COACH 1] then immediately then ordered her out. This of course humiliates them, not only in front of all their teammates but also the assembled parents and siblings waiting outside.

• [D3]: At the recent regional grades competition my 3^rd daughter, [D3], competed alongside an [THE CLUB] teammate. My daughter had a good, clean competition; placing 3^rd on R&C and seeming to do well on other pieces. I thought she might have come in the top 6, but unusually, only the first 3 overall places were announced and no score sheets were provided. So my older daughter went to ask [D3]’s coach ([ABUSIVE COACH 1]’s younger daughter [COACH 3]) if she knew how well [D3] had done. “6^th” was the reluctantly given answer and her teammate 12^th, but she was told that we weren’t ‘allowed’ to tell [D3] because “[ABUSIVE COACH 1] had wanted the other girl to win”. [D3] had recently been asked to come to extra sessions on Wednesdays which were run by [ABUSIVE COACH 1] rather than [D3]’s usual coach [COACH 3]. This would come home upset from these sessions saying things like “[ABUSIVE COACH 1] thinks I am bad gymnast” and I’ve been at a loss to say anything because I know it is true that [ABUSIVE COACH 1] thinks that and that [ABUSIVE COACH 1] is contemptuous of her.  When [D3] was only four years old, on a parent watching day, [ABUSIVE COACH 1] threw my daughter out in disgust because she was scared to try something. I persuaded my daughter to be brave and go back it to give it a try expecting that [ABUSIVE COACH 1] would respect that, instead she screamed at her to get out  (I complained at the time to the Welfare Officer but nothing was done).

• [D3]: Just before the county qualifier mentioned above, [D3] was asked to come on Wednesdays in addition to her usual Thursday, Saturday and Sunday sessions. This session was coached by [ABUSIVE COACH 1] while the other sessions by her youngest daughter.  [D3] was often very unhappy after these sessions but I encouraged her to continue as she had competition coming up however my older daughter [D1], who was in the same Wednesday group and warned me that [ABUSIVE COACH 1] was indeed “picking on” my [D3] and treating her badly. As previously mentioned, [ABUSIVE COACH 1] has favourites and she is loud and proud about it. Her preference being for children who are pretty, vivacious, and fearless. My daughter is none of these things being shy and quiet. Things finally came to a head last week. I arrived near the end of the session and sat down to wait. Suddenly we all heard [ABUSIVE COACH 1] VICIOUSLY shrieking at the top of her lungs “[D3]!!”  “YOU’RE NOT WORKING HARD ENOUGH!” “I AM FURIOUS!” “GET OUT OF MY GYM!!” “DON’T EVER COME BACK ON WEDNESDAYS!!!!!” etc. It was so loud and vicious in tone that the parents waiting outside were wincing with every word. My daughter came out and on seeing me dissolved into floods of tears. She explained that they had been conditioning when [ABUSIVE COACH 1] suddenly started screaming at her. There had been no warning. While it is entirely possible that my 8 year old might not have been doing whatever they wanted perfectly she could have simply said “come on, you can do better”. And if she just wanted to withdraw the Wednesday session, for whatever reason, she only had to have a quiet word with me (I have never pushed for more hours). But what she absolutely did not have to do was, scream like a banshee to humiliate and terrorise my daughter. She completely refused to go in to her regular session the next day. And while she was persuaded to go to the next one (it followed a gym mate’s birthday party so they all went together) she cried in fear at going in and had to be cajoled by many parents to go in. We left for good before the next session. This is the “[D3] incident” that [ABUSIVE COACH 1] refers to in her email (reproduced later).

But as I have mentioned, the bullying is not new and there are many incidents that illustrate this. Back in 2012 in the run up to the Regional Teams competition, [D1], who while she is very talented, also the medical condition (already mentioned) causing her a lot of injuries and pain, was being bullied mercilessly, and was thrown out of the gym and the team in very obvious and very public disgust. I wrote to [ABUSIVE COACH 1] to further explain her condition and how it needed to be managed. [ABUSIVE COACH 1] remained very aggressive and was very vague about whether she would be in the team or not the following day.

We arrived at the Teams competition in very good time and were up in the stands. The rest of the team were eventually called down to begin warming up and to prepare for marching on. [D1] , who was very low by this point, remained with all the parents in the stand to support her team Suddenly, [ABUSIVE COACH 1] ordered her down to compete and as part of her condition includes high anxiety this was extremely stressful for her. The experience was horrendous. Throughout the competition she was isolated from her team members and made to sit apart from her team on her own. From experience they knew this was the worst thing they could do because she gets anxious and the distraction of chatting and joking with teammates helps. Astonishingly, despite all this, she performed really well and was the club’s highest scoring gymnast. However after the medals were given, [ABUSIVE COACH 1] gave a team debrief on the floor and in front of everyone told [D1] and the team and anyone else in earshot that the judges must have been blind and that she hadn’t deserved to do so well etc etc.

Physical danger:

As I have already repeatedly said, the children are very afraid to say if they are ill, injured or in pain and the parents are afraid to speak up for them as they know this will result in even worse treatment by the coaches and I have heard children literally beg their parents not to say anything. They are afraid to be off gym when they are ill. For example, the club’s best gymnast took two days off through illness at Christmas – she literally couldn’t get out of bed. She was given a very hard time by [ABUSIVE COACH 2] who told her she couldn’t be an elite gymnast if she took time off for illness,  that she now doesn’t dare take a session off no matter how ill and weak she feels. This has twice resulted in significant injury because she was training when not fit to do so.

Parents are steered away from using physios who give advice that they don’t like or agree with (because it is inconvenient for them) or whom [ABUSIVE COACH 1]/[ABUSIVE COACH 2] have failed to manipulate into signing children off. For example, I visited a local athletics centre and brought back a card for a sports physiotherapist that was recommended as having a lot of experience with paediatric sports injuries (hard to find).  We were all sat out in the waiting area with [ABUSIVE COACH 1] present and I showed everyone the card, said how well people had spoken of him and put it on the board. “Oh, I don’t like him” she said “he’s no good”. I expressed surprise as he’d been so highly recommended “yeah but I approached him to sign off on [CHILD’S NAME] (who had badly hurt her ankle) competing and he refused”. This child too is frightened to come in and frightened to compete. They disbelieved her about her injury and took great delight in telling everyone (children and parents) that she was faking. She is extremely talented and so I believe is at risk from [ABUSIVE COACH 2] and [ABUSIVE COACH 1] as, despite their contempt for her ‘character’ they will want to use her to achieve their aims

Clearly this is a dangerous situation which has the potential to lead to serious injury and long-term damage. For example:

One of the elite athletes broke some ribs in a fall on beam at gym. This particular athlete is immensely brave and stoic to a fault, she had been very tired and unwell that day (but was afraid to take the time off which directly resulted in the accident (she has also broken her toe in identical circumstances). She was in a lot of pain due to it (she is so stoic that if she says she is in pain you know something serious is wrong). But, with a competition coming up [ABUSIVE COACH 1] and [ABUSIVE COACH 2] dismissed the injury as just “bruising” and put a huge amount of pressure on the parent and the athlete to continue training.

Worried, and against [ABUSIVE DAUGHTER COACH]’s wishes, her parents took her to a respected physio who diagnosed several broken ribs and said she absolutely shouldn’t train. The parent, knowing that [ABUSIVE COACH 1]/[ABUSIVE COACH 2] would disbelieve and blame her if she insisted on this, gave [ABUSIVE COACH 1]/[ABUSIVE COACH 2] permission to contact the physio directly to get his advice on how to proceed.  The parent was extremely surprised when [ABUSIVE COACH 1]/[ABUSIVE COACH 2] said they’d had spoken to the physio and that he’d agreed that the child could resume training, but she trusted [ABUSIVE COACH 1]/[ABUSIVE COACH 2] and the physio and thinking she must have misunderstood the physio,agreed. Sometime later the parent spoke again to the physio who said he had strongly advised against training and that [ABUSIVE COACH 1] had lied.

Very recently this athlete has been training hard for a critical competition. The child was utterly exhausted this past week which you could easily see from the way she moved and walked. On Wednesday, another coach, who is very close to [ABUSIVE COACH 2] in particular, came out of the gym to talk to this gymnast’s mum who was sat talking to me. The coach said the gymnast was doing well but that she was clearly completely exhausted. She said that she had tried to warn [ABUSIVE COACH 2] to be careful in case she pushed her too hard and she had an accident but that [ABUSIVE COACH 2] had “bitten her head off” in response.

Another of the elite gymnasts – who recently left because the mother felt it was no longer safe to leave her child in their care if a parent wasn’t able to supervise the session – encountered similar pressure. [ABUSIVE COACH 2]’s physio said she absolutely had to rest if she was to recover and that she couldn’t do any gym at all for two weeks. Her mum duly left her at home to rest and took her younger sister in for her session. [ABUSIVE COACH 1] asked where the child was and when the mum explained [ABUSIVE COACH 1] DEMANDED that the mum go immediately home to fetch her and bring her in. The mum refused and the encounter became so heated that the mum was worried it might result in fisticuffs!

However, the emotional damage caused can also be extreme:

Matthew (not his real name):

One sweet young lad that she had little regard for used to be subjected to hearing [ABUSIVE COACH 1] disparage the attempts of other children by shouting “even MATTHEW can do better that THAT”. She was always putting him down and quite possibly in the hope that he would leave. His mother finally had enough and took him to another club where, she tells me, he is flourishing emotionally and gymnastically at another club. While she is very angry at the months and months of bullying her son was subjected to she didn’t send the letter of complaint she wrote to BG because, as is very common, she was afraid to would come back on her son in the small gymnastics world and while she wanted me to mention her son was still scared to have his name used.

Phoebe (not her real name):

I have known Phoebe (she is my daughter [D3]’s classmate) for many years and before she came to [THE CLUB] she was a very confident, outgoing, happy child who is also very talented physically. I believe she joined just as she turned 8 in the Sept 2013.  While her mum is not aware of anything being specifically directed at Phoebe, the environment of shouting, and climate fear eventually began to take its toll. Her problems began on one occasion when she just ran out of the gym.  After that she would just refuse to go in, often even been cajoled in on lasted for a short time and she would come back out of the gym. She began refusing to go at all having to be bribed with treats, persuaded to go with friends etc.

Phoebe simply didn’t feel safe at gym and was very frightened at being left. She became terrified of her mum leaving the premises. If her mum did manage to persuade her it was ok, and that she’d be back soon, Phoebe began to worry that something would happen to her mum (to be exact, that her mum would die) while she was gone and that mum would never come back to ‘save’ her. It became impossible to persuade her to go and she eventually left [THE CLUB] but by this time this idea that her mum might die while she was away from Phoebe had become so embedded that Phoebe became terrified to do anything that meant her mum leaving her (school, brownies etc) in case her mum died! 

Being at the school I watched this every day for months as a previously confident happy child was now afraid to go into school and it was truly heart-breaking. Her mum says her difficulties lasted for over 18 months and that she only recovered with the help of our school SENCO who is very luckily a trained children’s’ counsellor. In fact, Phoebe, now 9, is still too traumatised to stay over at friend’s houses for sleepovers, something she was happy to do before.

The email from [ABUSIVE COACH 1]:

Following the terrible way my daughter was treated on Wednesday 20^th May evening I received an email from [ABUSIVE COACH 1] which I copied in full below with my comments/responses (which are for you, I have not responded to her)

From: [ABUSIVE COACH 1]
Sent: 21 May 2015 13:46
To: [my email] Subject: [THE CLUB]

[ABUSIVE COACH 1]: You do realise you may not have shared your rant with myself or [ABUSIVE DAUGHTER COACH], but other people have since contacted me ! If you want to stir trouble that is up to you – considering I was going to offer [D2] an alternative than being with me which would have benefitted her greatly.  The fact that I have always given you a discount, and recently a rather large one,  given your children opportunities that other people did not.  I am upset with [D2] as she does not want to progress… I have girls in the group who want to do the skills that she can easily do, but she chooses not to… Therefore she cannot train with my group.

My Comment: [D2] would love to progress but she could no longer cope with the pernicious bullying she was subjected to by [ABUSIVE COACH 2] and [ABUSIVE COACH 1]. She has been broken by them. She wanted to move to Super Group ([ABUSIVE COACH 1]’s 9 hour/week grp) in the hope that she might be able to enjoy gym, the sport she loves, again (something that many girls before her have done). But [ABUSIVE COACH 1]/[ABUSIVE COACH 2] were so angry that she didn’t want to be put in the FIG team for the upcoming South Region teams competition (because she is scared of [ABUSIVE COACH 2] as a coach not the moves) that [ABUSIVE COACH 1] was determined to make her life miserable. I have since learned that the alternative she claims she was going to offer was to train again with [ABUSIVE COACH 2] who had made her life so very miserable over the past months. Not an alternative at all.

 My ‘rant’ was my understandable distress at seeing my yet again sobbing child, distraught at having been binned from her new group (for trying to follow medical advice) having just been bullied out of her old group. For months she had kept herself going with the thought that she might be allowed to enjoy gym again in this other group. Every session over the previous weeks had resulted in at least one daughter (and on one occasion, three) in tears having been picked on and bullied and thrown out.

Recently [ABUSIVE COACH 1] has indeed given us a large discount for which I was immensely grateful as otherwise all my children would have had to quit, but my children have paid for this very dearly in intensified bullying that has been apparent to many. Previously we have not received any discount except for a very small additional child discount in the early days when the little ones were in rec/pre-school classes when there was a small discount as standard which amounted to a few pounds. As soon as the girls were all in ‘squads’ this went. We weren’t charged for [D1]’s BG membership this year because (I was informed by [ABUSIVE COACH 1]) she was a) not competing and b) coaching/volunteering for the club.

[ABUSIVE COACH 1]: You are not the only one with financially difficult times – I am on first name basis with bailiffs who regularly attend my home, so much so my children are afraid to answer the door, this is because I have put other people children first, strived to give them opportunities. I have worked 7 days a week for the last four years, and you feel that you can post things like that on your face book. 

My Comment: I posted information about Sever’s disease for which a large number of my friends with children active in many sports were immensely grateful. I didn’t mention or blame the club.

[ABUSIVE COACH 1]: I understand your concerns with severs, it is common and affects many athletes. I was not going to ask [D2] to do vault, or tumbles on the beam, it is a growth related issue, and she may well rest for 6 weeks, but the reality is, when she starts training again it will still hurt, it is something that needs to be managed. Of course elite gymnastics is overuse, as in any elite sport, and it is not confined to my gymnastics club. The damage you may be  doing to the clubs reputation, I  am assuming is not something that you are thinking of right now and I am sure that if [D2] had wanted to go for the challenge cup you would be managing this situation very differently! 

My Comment: Well she is right that it is about [D2] and how much pain she can tolerate and it is a great shame that any ‘concern’ has never been shared with [D2] or myself. [D2] has worked through terrible pain over the last few months, not only with her heels but her hip (about which [ABUSIVE COACH 2] was very nasty if [D2] mentioned it). She grazed her face and smashed her braces trying to perfect her double back on floor, badly bruised her forehead in a fall on beam etc etc but absolutely none of this was ever acknowledged. [D2] knew she would be punished if she complained so would hold back her tears until she was safely out of the gym.

They knew she had Sever’s (they diagnosed it) but there was not a single word of advice given on how to manage it. Finally, having very maturely taken the hardest decision ever; to lose the chance of going to Challenge, to stop training with her best gym friend and to lose her hours and gymnastics opportunities, [D2] asked me to finally take her to the doctor for help and advice as the pain was spreading and getting worse. The doctor was VERY adamant that she needed to rest because the heels had been so aggravated by overuse and said that thereafter she could return to her new, lower hours. He said that hopefully she might be pain free but if not, it should at least be more tolerable. [D2] was terrified about talking to [ABUSIVE COACH 1] about it and as it turned out was completely justified in her fear.

[ABUSIVE COACH 1]:I am very disappointed and I should have not taken [D2] into my group in the first place, as I knew she did not have the right attitude for this group. I know that what she says and my opinion will differ, but to have a child who wants to come in and just do what she wants to is not a great dynamic, as I am sure you will understand.

My Comment: The simple fact is that [ABUSIVE COACH 1] simply doesn’t like [D2], this is not paranoia, it is a fact that she has frequently made abundantly clear to [D2], myself, all the other gymnasts and most everybody in the club, it has even been announced to anyone who happened to be listening in the waiting area. As regards doing “just what she wants”. What she ‘wanted’ was to follow medical advice and rest her feet in the hope that the pain she has been suffering will begin to ease. It is absolutely usual practice for gymnasts who are injured come in to all training sessions as normal and do what they CAN do and she was very keen to come in and do everything she COULD and to work VERY hard at it.

[ABUSIVE COACH 1]: I have tried contacting you several times, but it seems to be that you are to busy to discuss this. I know you are upset with the [D3] incident, but if you had seen the effort she was putting in what had been a fun session letting them get use to orientation of new skills, and the fact that another coach was in front of her and she still did not make an effort to do split jumps on the fast track was quite frankly disappointing when the Wednesday is currently an “extra” session for them, there is no point her attending it – if that is going to be her work ethic.

My Comment: She had tried to phone three times that day, after we had finally walked out and left [THE CLUB], over a week after the above mentioned ‘incident’ and very much too late.  As ALWAYS she blames the child for her behaviour. I haven’t approached her about the ‘incident’ as I knew it was pointless to do so and that it would only make things worse. She also simply dislikes [D3], when she was only a tot of 4 and she similarly screamed at her to get out and more recently had taken to bad-mouthing her to me and other parents and children.  [D3] is now 8. She is quiet and shy. She is not perfect. But, funnily enough is renowned in the club for her work ethic, which, while it might be of the quiet, steady variety is still to be very much admired. But, whatever she was doing she didn’t deserve the treatment she suffered which, as I mention elsewhere was to be viciously screamed at and thrown out. The fact is that she was under the weather that week and, coincidently, suffering from sore heels after doing athletics at school the previous day. [ABUSIVE COACH 1] could have asked if she was ok. She could have asked what she was doing. She could have encouraged her to put more effort in. She could also have ignored it and told me later that [D3] wasn’t wanted in the Wednesday session – I would not have been bothered in the slightest. BUT what she shouldn’t have done, is terrorised a quiet, shy 8 year old girl.

[ABUSIVE COACH 1]: I have given [D3] numerous opportunities and even to the point where you didn’t want to let her compete and I encouraged it, knowing that she could do reasonably well if she pushed, which she did !

My Comment: I never pushed for or asked for those opportunities and neither did [D3]. In fact, after the incident when she was just 4 years old, I asked that she be moved out of the development group and into a Recreational class. However, [D3] so clearly deserved being put into more advanced groups that it would have been extremely awkward for [ABUSIVE COACH 1] not to put her forward as less talented, less hard-working children were being advanced.

 I didn’t ‘want’ her to compete at the Regional comp that [ABUSIVE COACH 1] is referring to because [ABUSIVE COACH 1] was SO sneering and disparaging about [D3] at the County qualifier that I was under the impression that she was expected to do very badly at the Regional event. I was therefore already very worried about the negative impact the comp might have on [D3] and that it would expose her to more nasty comments when, to add insult to injury, we were suddenly informed that the club was now going to charge parents £50 for all competition entries which, on top of the cost of driving there and back and spectator entry charges made for an unaffordably expensive day which was likely to result in misery for my daughter. It is a blatant lie that [ABUSIVE COACH 1] “encouraged” her to compete, we were simply told it was too late to withdraw the entry and so we went, prepared for the worst. However, she did great! Came 6th overall and even beat her much favoured teammate. This upset [ABUSIVE COACH 1] so much who, we told by [ABUSIVE COACH 1]’s daughter, had wanted the teammate to win, that we were instructed not to tell [D3] where she had placed (I have mentioned this elsewhere).