RedHanded - Football’s Abuse Scandal: The FA’s Darkest Secret | #411

Episode Date: August 7, 2025

In 2016, ex-footballer Andy Woodward revealed on live TV that he and countless other boys were sexually abused by their former youth coach, Barry Bennell, whilst training in Manchester City and Crewe Alexandra’s acclaimed “football factories” as youngsters in the 1980s and 90s. In doing so, he blew the whistle on one of the UK’s most prolific child abusers – and triggered a scandal that went deeper than anyone could’ve imagined…Because Barry Bennell wasn’t the first – or the last – paedophilic predator to muddy the pitch of the beautiful game. The widespread child abuse scandal tore through the heart of British football, revealing a toxic culture more interested in collecting trophies than protecting children.Support links:The Offside Trust – Survivor-led support organisation dedicated to safeguarding children & young people across sportNSPCC – The UK Children’s CharityExclusive bonus content:Wondery - Ad-free & ShortHandPatreon - Ad-free & Bonus EpisodesFollow us on social media:YouTubeTikTokInstagramVisit our website:WebsiteSources available on redhandedpodcast.comSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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I'm Surytie. And welcome to the Upshot. We're doing sports. We are. Go sports. Bad sports. The bad side of sports. So welcome to red-handed does sports.

In November 2016, the British football world was rocked by a scandal. that shook the sport to its call. Ex-pro, Andy Woodward, revealed on live TV that he was sexually abused by his former youth coach, Barry Bernal, in a twisted campaign that scarred his teen years. Initially, it was sexual touching, but then it rapidly got worse. He raped me. I don't want to put a number on how many times,

but put it away, it was for a four-year period. And he wasn't the only one. There is others out there. I hope, with this, I can give them strength. Bunnell was the so-called Starmaker, a man with direct links to clubs like Manchester City and crew Alexandra. To working-class parents, he was the ticket to the big leagues. To the boys, he was God.

He'd used those words of, you do want to be a footballer, don't you? And it was that control that all I wanted to do was be a footballer. It was my dream. I need this. And I have to go through it. If I can't deal with this, then I'm not going to be a footballer. Behind the facade of the charismatic youth coach,

Barry Benal was a predator. It was his way of finding out which players were the weaker ones or the softer ones. The impact that it's had on my life is just catastrophic. Everybody always says to me, how do you cope with it? How do you deal with it? We survive and that's it. We survive. A pied piper and trackies,

Bernel abused countless young hopefuls who passed through his so-called football factory. The abuse was hidden in plain sight, in changing rooms, team buses, even on the Manchester City pitch. Players Benel thought were special would be forced to endure his sick attentions for years before he moved on to the fresh blood of younger boys.

It was a cycle of grooming, isolation and fear where puppet master Benel pulled all the strings. Everyone knew that if you spoke out, Bernel would use his powerful contacts to kill your footy career before it even began. There were rumours, whispers, cruel nicknames and locker room jibes, but for years nobody spoke out.

Because in the matro world of 70s, 80s and 90s football, boys didn't cry boys didn't talk especially not about that and despite the ever-swirling rumours those in power at the senior clubs were all too willing to overlook the smoke just as long as they didn't have to confront the fire

Bennell's crimes left a trail of devastation in their wake scared young boys grew into broken men trauma wrecked careers suicides It wasn't until 2016 that the brave actions of survivors finally uncovered the extent of Bunnell's crimes. Crime so heinous that one man said it would make Jimmy Saville look like a choir boy. But the cracks ran deeper than Benel and the Northwest Youth Football Circuit.

Andy Woodward's admission opened the floodgates to a tidal wave of allegations against Bunnell and many other coaches nationwide. And in turn, opened a can of worms that could never be shut again. So how deep did the rock go? Were these buried secrets indicative of widespread corruption in the football industry? And has anything really changed today?

We've gone down the rabbit hole of a scandal that forever tarnished the reputation of the so-called beautiful game. And for you, we have a powerful, story of ambition, abuse, and survival. And corruption. I think that's the key thing. It is so hard to wrap your head around this case, to understand how many people knew what

was going on and did nothing. And I feel like I sound like a broken record. Me too. We say this all the fucking time on this show. And I'm just like, how many people needed to know about what was happening to these young boys, in institutions within football in this country, the sport that we spend more money than anything else on, any other sport on in this country. And nothing happened. It is staggering. And there's going to be a lot of other things that we're going to keep repeating, specifically about

the type of victims that these boys were, and who was in charge, the money that was involved. But the one word that sits at the heart of this all is corruption, just a very fair. estering cessball of corruption. And I'm not just talking about, you know, set-blatter and his little, like, back-channel bags of swag from Qatar levels of corruption. The kind of corruption that lets little boys get raped. So, strap in.

So, yeah, when we were like, it's the upshot today. It's not the fun kind where it's like how Tiger Woods' real name is Elgin or something shit and how we had a secret mistress that he went for lunches with in the cafe literally across the road from his own. house where his wife lived. No, it's much more child rape. I'm afraid. So sorry about that. But it is a real deep dive into kind of a British, another British child abuse scandal, but for some reason is not more well known. I knew about this. We've seen the pictures of Barry Benel. Everyone will have seen the pictures of Barry Benel. He's very like, I don't want to say

the word iconic, but you know like Jimmy Saville, it's like, he has a look to him. Barry Bernal, like, we'll talk about it later, but he has like the big hair and the big smile and like, everyone will recognise him. But I do not think that this story is as well known as it should be, considering how rampant this was, and for how many decades it went on. So yeah, let's begin our story with where it all started for Barry Benal. Born in 1954, Bernal, but now grew up in the northwest of England. Your classic, working-class lad, with a decent right foot and some big dreams.

He went south and claimed that he trained with Chelsea as a youngster. Although, according to him, his hopes of going pro were dashed by brittle bones. That old chestnut. But, you know what they may be unfairly say. If you can't do, teach. So with his own glory days over before they really began, Bernal turned his attention. to coaching the next generation of talent.

He started coaching in the 1970s, while still a young man himself, and he would spend the next two decades deeply embedded in the English youth football scene. So firstly, for anyone who just isn't all that convinced by football, we are going to attempt to explain how it works in the UK for those starting out in the game. Nowadays, top clubs have their own official

youth academies, complete with training grounds and sought after squads from the age of nine. These pint-sized players are treated like future investments right from the start, with rigorous safeguarding procedures to boot. But in the 70s, it was a whole lot looser. The Premier League, as it exists in this country now, only happened in the 90s. We're only 30 years into this sleek, televised, lovely stadium situation that we have now. Yeah, actually, because you have all the kind of youth academies, right, where all of the young players that are potentials for different clubs

go and train and live and go to school and all of that kind of stuff and they're kind of held in this like compound. The Arsenal Football Academy for youngsters is actually in Himes Park, where I live. So, yeah, all the people that come to my house are like, I'm going to go look at them like that, makes you sound weird. Do you know it's full of kids? That's so funny. I know you're an Arsenal fan, but don't go over there.

It's going to make you like a fucking noms. Why would it be in Himes Park? I don't know. That's where it is. Mental? Yeah. Anyway, there was no slick academy system in Himes Park or otherwise in the 70s. Instead, major clubs relied on loosely affiliated scouts who got involved with local teams,

often called nursery or feeder clubs, and they cherry-picked potential boys to go pro. And it was in this world that Barry B'anel built up a reputation as one of the best youth coaches in the country. He could pluck a football mad kid from a northern council estate and turn him into a Premier League prospect. His name became closely tied to three major clubs. Manchester City from 1982 to 85,

Crewe Alexander from 1985 to 1992, and Stoke City between 1992 and 1994. With Bunnell on board, Cruz's youth club scene became so well known for churning out talent that it was nicknamed the football factory. And Bernal took his role as unofficial foreman very seriously. He coached hundreds of boys aged 9 to 16, playing for youth teams around the North West, mainly in the Peak District.

This was alongside stints as a residential social worker at a children's home. Of course he was. And look, I'm not saying that everyone who wants to work with children is a paedophile. No, but it's very caravan at Broadmoor Carpark, isn't it? Yeah. Ah, it's just... What a time to be a pito. Honestly, the 70s.

Colon. What a time to be a big fat fucking lans. Just sweet a spur. When he wasn't working at children's home, he was running summer football camps at Butlin's Holiday Parks, and he also had a video shop business. Because Bernal built his life around two things. The beautiful game and the inner... and young boys who played it.

And Barry Bennell wasn't your average bloke with a whistle and a track suit standing on the sideline screaming. No, no, no. With a striking curly hair and bright toothy grin, he was charismatic and full of energy. He'd later admit that he was a bit full of himself and always thought he was brilliant.

And at the start, plenty of the young lads he coached felt the same way. And that's just like a very football coach slash manager thing to say. We're in the Brian Clough era here Like they're all saying stuff like that all the time Yeah and Barry Bunnell as a predator Who wants to prey on young boys Were sadly given all of the gifts That a man who wants to do those things

Needs to be able to do it Because all these boys They were bowled over by Benel's charisma His fast car and his flashy clothes Not to mention his skills with a football Because remember he's not good enough to go pro But these kids He looks pretty good.

Oh, yeah. And on the pitch he taught tricks like a magician, little flourishes and flicks that made the boys feel like superstars. Andy Woodward, the man you heard at the start, remembers how Bernel, quote, had everyone under his spell. And it wasn't just the kids he charmed. Another survivor, Gary Cliff, says that Bernel won over his player's families

and had parents in the palm of his hand. And this is another thing with Bernel, like, very instinctively. I hate to say the words like he's an intelligent peterphal, but instinctively he knows how to play the game. He knows it's not just about the kids. He knows it's about how he presents himself to the FAA, to the institution, the whole footballing world,

but also very crucially to the mums and dads and families of these boys. Some of the moms even work shifts in his chain of video shops. And one family even had Bunnell over for Christmas. dinner one year because they thought he might be lonely. Guardian sports journalist Danny Taylor put it like this. All the sisters and mums fancied him, and the dads wanted to be just like him. But Bunnell's real power came from the badge on his jacket. His connections to clubs, like Manchester City and crew Alexandra, gave him a sort of celebrity

status. Barry Bunnell wasn't just a coach. He was the man who might just change your family's life forever. Bunnell rode into these working-class towns full of confidence and promises dangling the dream of a professional football career just within reach and that, as it turned out,

would be Benel's real sleight of hand. Bob Bowers, chairman of one of the youth teams, later said this. It was like watching a circus master at work, but while we were all looking at the football, we weren't conscious of the darker secret. It's quite, not quite, It's exactly the same as the kids who are just sort of handed to Diddy. It's this pursuit of stardom and fame and especially coming from a working class background.

And, you know, back in the 70s, it wouldn't have been as much money as it is now, because now it's unimaginable wealth, but it, you know, significant. I was listening to Gordon Ramsey on a podcast the other day. He was in the Academy at Rangers when he was a kid. And even now, he's however old he is and he's got a 1,700 Michelin's, the pain in his voice when he talks about getting let go from Rangers is heartbreaking. Absolutely. You have to understand the climate and the hysteria around this kind of thing of like how big football is in this country and how it could change your entire life,

not just your entire life as a young boy from a working class estate somewhere, particularly in the north, but this idea that it could change your entire family's fortune if you were to be successful. It is just on another level. And I know in the US, you talk about the kind of draft for the NFL, things like that. And even then you talk about how young those kids are because they're in high school. We're talking even younger. I've watched interviews with football coaches who have said, if they're not getting it by four or five, it's not happening. I can tell by four or five who's going to be a superstar.

So we are talking so young. And such pressure to succeed. I mean, when we were doing the research into this, like looking into the bigger stories, not specifically to do with child abuse, but how we were talking about it with the team upstairs, they were saying some of these boys just got text messages saying, no, you're not good enough, sorry, see ya, don't bother coming in for training next week. There were suicides off the back of that, I bet. So obviously, it's such a big deal, it's so important.

And you want your child to succeed, everyone does. So obviously, it makes sense to be nice to the bloke who's making them. the choices. And I just want to be clear, because there has been so much backlash once this came out. Once Andy Woodward went public with this, we're going to talk about all this in the episode. There was such a backlash against the parents from the public saying, how could you have given your child over to these monsters? I do not think for one iota of a second that any of these parents even had the mentality to think that somebody could do this to their child, let alone Barry Benel. They did not have any clue. They weren't sacrificing their children.

on the altar of, like, becoming rich and allowing the sexual abuse to happen to them. They did not know. Winning the trust of the boys' families was always the first step for Benel. Once he'd done that, he had free reign and unparalleled access to groom the boys he saw as special, often behind closed doors, in his own home. So how did he manage that? Well, Benel regularly had boys stay over at his house the night before a big match, an arrangement the clubs he worked for were not only aware of but encouraged

even as rumours swirled about bernel's conduct with the boys crew alexandra manager dario gradi said that he never saw an issue leaving bernel alone with the boys overnight whilst working as a scout for crew alexandra bernel even had the nerve to charge the club expenses for these sleepovers five quid per night per boy he doesn't miss an opportunity not arbor now I think we can safely say that these sort of sleepovers wouldn't happen today

not that abuse wouldn't or couldn't but boys definitely would not be encouraged to stay the night at their coach's house one would hope I mean this is the thing when it comes to children safeguarding I am not of the same mentality

of like oh health and safety like oh fucking hell you can't you know I can't walk through this library without a hard howl or something yeah yeah no I'm not saying that with safeguarding, be paranoid. Be extra fucking paranoid. Do everything you can

to minimise the risk to children. Mm-hmm. So I would hope that no kids are fucking sleeping over at their coaches' house. Me too. Mm-hmm. But DBS is only show

what you've been caught for. Quite. Anyway, up until the 90s, there were no safeguarding protocols at all. The ones we have now aren't perfect, but at least they exist. Everything was just on a trust basis. So, with no pushback from the club, parents would have been under the impression that everything was completely above-bought.

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The town of Agda in France is famous for sun, sand, sea, and sex. But lately, life on the coast has taken a strange turn. The town's mayor, a respected pillar of the community, has been arrested for corruption. His wife claims he's been bewitched. by a beautiful clairvoyant. Then there's the mysterious phone calls that local people have been getting. I am the Archangel Michael.

The whole town has been thrown into chaos. As the mayor is unable to carry out his duties, I would like to address you all. Legal proceedings have been initiated. Join me, Anna Richardson and journalist Leo Schick for the Mystic and the Mayor as we investigate a story of power, corruption and magic.

Binge all episodes of The Mystic and the Mayor exclusively and ad-free right now on Wondry Plus. Start your free trial in Apple Podcasts, Spotify or the Wondry app. In 1984, 11-year-old Andy Woodward had been playing for Stockport Boys Club for less than a month when Barry Bunnell first invited him to stay at his house, beginning a four-year ordeal filled with countless sexual assaults and rapes. Now it's fair to say that Bernal's home was nothing like your bog standard suburban semi. Nothing like you'd expect from a grassroots footy coach. In fact, it was a deliberately constructed teen boys' fantasy land.

There were fruit machines, a jukebox, a pool table, stacks upon stacks of VHS tapes, and all the latest computer games. Andy Woodward remembers it being like a treasure tree. a child's dream. The press called it an Aladdin's cave of treats. Its contents carefully designed to lure kids in and keep them coming back. And turn them into donkeys like in Pinocchio.

And then there was Bunnell's wild menagerie of exotic pets, a monkey that would sit on your shoulder, two enormous Pyrenean mountain dogs, and at one point, even a literal puma roaming around the house. Take Tiger King and smack him together with Jimmy Saville and you're getting somewhere close.

Yeah. But let's make no mistake. Pumour or no puma, the most dangerous predator in those walls was Barry Bonner. And every flashing light, an arcade button, was bait for his prey.

I've literally just realised that Pinocchio's about sex trafficking. Lovely. Mm-hmm. It's getting better and better. Sleepovers at Bernal's house would usually start with him showing the lad's footage of their football matches on his state-of-the-art TV to analyse their play. But things would inevitably grow more sinister as the night went on. He played horror films, borrowed from his VHS shop, which frightened the younger boys so much that he would encourage them to cuddle up to him for comfort.

This paved the way for inappropriate touching, like putting hands down their tracksuit bottoms, often in full view of the same. the other boys. Benel would then put on hardcore S&M porn from his extensive collection, stroking the lads on their necks and chests or tickling them while they watched. Bunnell chose special boys to stay in his bedroom with him, where things escalated to full-blown rapes. One anonymous survivor believes that Benel used these overnight stays as a testing ground to see exactly what he could get away with for each boy. And yeah, this is where you start to see them. that classic grooming behaviour.

I hate that in that clip we played for you at the start, that Andy Woodward talks about himself as being one of the weak ones. He says he was picking and trying to identify which one of us boys were the weak ones that he could groom and abuse. I don't want to take anything away for Andy Woodward. He's an incredibly brave man who came out and spoke about all this. But I hate that he refers to himself as that, because that's not what it is.

Barry Bonell wasn't there looking for who's the weakest. that to me, having done far too many episodes like this over the past decade, isn't the word. It's the children that he knew were going to ask fewer questions, who are going to go along with it, who are going to be easier targets, but it doesn't make them weak. It was just the ones that he identified as the ones that he could groom most easily. And there could have been a myriad reasons why that was. Maybe there's some other gap that they're missing in their home life or somewhere else or something is going on with them psychologically that just makes them more vulnerable.

Maybe they were just the ones who were the most hungry for it. As Andy talks about himself, he really, really wanted this. He needed this. Football was the only thing he saw himself succeeding at. So that hunger in and of itself made him vulnerable. And Benel knew that. And he does exactly what child rapists like him do. Identify the ones he can get away with it.

Push it just a little bit further, a little bit further, a little bit further. And then if he gets pushed back, oh, pull away. He's a very calculated man. So Bunnell would abuse these boys everywhere. In his car, on football trips to places like Spain, where he alone was solely responsible for supervising the multiple boys in his care. Survivor Gary Cliff recounts how on these trips Barry Benel would share a bed with two boys at a time and force them both to masturbate him, as well as force them into oral abuse.

Andy Woodward would still tears up as he recalls how Benel once took seven boys on a week-long trip to Grand Canaria and quote had one of them every night and shockingly the sexual abuse wasn't always hidden behind closed doors it even took place on the hallowed grounds of the senior clubs themselves Benel bragged that he quote had the run of the place at man's city with access to come and go as he pleased on the club's premises which is exactly what jimmy savel says i was just going to say it's literally word for word what Jimmy Saville says about places like Stoke Mandeville. It's diabolical.

And yeah, just to put that into perspective, because Harry Bennell is full of shit about some of the things he's saying, but as calculated as he is, he certainly likes to take some risks. And again, I think this feeds into his perversions, right? It's this, I'm getting away with it, not just behind closed doors, also in public. Because whilst encouraging the boys to take a little rest, do some sunbathing, Gary Cliff, one of the survivors, said he was fondled by Barry Bonell right there on the pitch of Man City, one of the biggest clubs in the UK, right there on broad daylight. The audacity and scale of Bunnell's offending begs one glaring question. Why is it that for decades not one official complaint was ever made to senior club management or the police?

The answer is complicated. There isn't just one single reason why these boys didn't blow the whistle on Bunnell, there never is. Bunnell's manipulation tactics were layered and always carefully calculated. Firstly, Andy Woodward says that he believes Benel deliberately targeted those he viewed as softer, weaker boys like Seru said. But in reality, it's the ones he thought he could strike real fear into until their teenage years, which has nothing to do with how strong they are. and Benel also used his status as an accepted part of the community to his advantage. He was grooming the parents as well,

a fact that hung over the boys' heads and created a powerful deterrent to ever speaking out. Bunnell's victims knew that the truth would break their mum and dad's hearts. Remember, these are ordinary working-class people, many of whom had made real sacrifices so that their sons could chase the football dream, land a position at a big club, and maybe one. one day, even play for England. Those parents put their trust in Barry Bennell to change their kids' lives. So, for the boys at the time, it felt like too much to look their parents in the eye and tell them the truth,

that they'd unknowingly handed their children over to a monster. And if they spoke out, that would surely be the end of their football dream, and any hope they had of providing for their families. So many survivors just never said a word, even when they were all grown. grown up. Now, years later, they all agree on one thing. Their parents were victims too. The boys also faced violent intimidation from their fit, physically formidable coach. Survivor, Ian Ackley, who says Bernal raped him hundreds of times from when he was just nine years old, remembers how Benel would show the fear factor by slicing a piece of paper clean in half

with a pair of nunchucks. Jesus. The threat was clear. Imagine what I could do to you. And Ian says Benel's ruthless streak didn't take long to show up, on or off the pitch. He routinely singled out a few boys to mock and humiliate, just enough to make the others scramble to win his approval.

Again, Abuser 101. Former player Martin Clark says he once walked in on Benel abusing a boy in the crew changing rooms. when he forgot his football boots after a match. A startled Bernal, when Martin Clark walked in, spun around and pinned him to the wall with what Martin called a Darth Vader grip, snarling that if you breathed a word of anything he'd seen,

he'd bring his football career crashing down. And here's the crux of how Bernal consolidated his power and silenced these boys. He didn't have to resort to violence. He had a more powerful ace up his sleeve. By far the biggest tool at Benel's disposal was his ability to manipulate his victim's dreams of football stardom, using their ambition as a powerful method of control. The boys in Benel's world were all football mad, but the boys he abused were especially dedicated to making it as professional players. And as we heard in that clip from Ante at the very start of this episode, he says, I told myself if I can't get through this, and by this he means the rape and abuse.

he was enduring as a child, he was like, then I'm not cut out to be a professional player. That's literally what he thought. He was like, I have to get through this. And if I can't, then I don't get to have that. It's almost like he saw it as some sort of bizarre test of his own resilience. How much did he really want this? How much could he put up with? And it does fit in with that sportsman mentality, right?

This idea of you push yourself, you push yourself, you push yourself so hard. Yeah, yeah. And so this is another place you do that. Mm-hmm. And Bunnell knew that and he manipulated her. Former Manchester City player David White says that he thinks he was targeted because Bunnell identified that very specific hunger in him and his dad. As White puts it, he didn't have to be told to keep his mouth shut.

Many survivors later spoke out about their reluctance to burst the bubble of their dreams because Barry Bunnell made one thing crystal clear. If you dared to speak up about what he was doing, you could kiss your shot as a top flight footballer goodbye and you know also the element of because it's so competitive and so many people want it that oh you don't you don't want to be here

there are 20 people waiting to take your place and that's something that former player Jason Dunford found out the hard way when Bunnell attempted to grope him age 14 Jason says he pushed him away and told him to fuck off and the consequences were immediate and brutal Bonnell dropped Jason from his youth team

and accused him of stealing money from other players which got him shunned by his friends isolated from his teammates and afraid of the accusation reaching his parents Jason kept quiet about the attempted abuse and he later described this as Benel trying to chop him off at the knees and perhaps one of the most depressing elements

of Benel's operation is how much it was built on lies nothing more than pure brazen bullshit His powerful cult of personality, the flashy clothes, cars and club connections, convinced these boys that the only route to success was through him. But here's the thing. Barry Bunnell was nowhere near as bigger fish in the football pond as he claimed. Sure, he coached a fair few stars, like future Wales manager Gary Speed,

or our 90s Wonder Kid who exposed him Andy Woodward. But there were way more avenues to success. These kids just didn't know that. For many of his victims, that promised light at the end of the tunnel was the one thing that kept them going and allowed them to normalise the abuse. They saw it as something they had to get through for a while before coming out the other side and finally reaping the rewards.

Investigative journalist Deborah Davies notes a chilling detail that emerges in many of Bernal's survivor accounts, an unspoken succession system. The boys understood implicitly that Bernal's victims all had a shelf life. The special ones didn't stay special forever. As they grew up and their bodies changed, they'd be phased out and replaced. Another one of Benel's victims, a man named Chris Unsworth, describes it as Benel's seeking fresh blood.

He wanted boys, not men. Gary Cliff remembers how he was the older boy being replaced in Benel's affections by Andy Woodward, who was three years his junior. Gary knew it was wrong, but a part of him couldn't help but feel relieved that at last he would be free of Benel's abuse. Gary countered his guilt by reminding himself of the older boys who came before him

in a cycle that went on and on. He felt powerless to break that chain of abuse and protect his younger friend from his abuser, a deep guilt that Gary still lives with today. And it is so complicated, isn't it? that feeling of oh thank god it's going to stop happening to me he's looking at someone else but knowing what that person is going to go through knowing what that boy is going to go through yeah and i think i'm not i don't want to put words in anyone's mouth but in similar sort of

abuse situations there can also be a feeling of jealousy and then finding that very confusing absolutely sexual abuse when it's happening to anybody is incredibly but what is happening to children in particular. The feelings of shame around absolutely what you say Hannah about like no longer being the favourite, no longer being the special one, and what does that mean for you? The feeling of sickness or feeling sad that you're no longer the special one, but the relief that it isn't happening to you. And also, again, I don't want to make any assumptions about any of the men who've spoken out about Barry Bunnell, but in other cases that we've come across in videos that I've watched with survivors,

the confusion as well in cases where their body responded against their, will. So in cases where boys who are sexually abused, orgasm, and that feeling of, well, then was I asking for him? Because obviously my body was enjoying it. And that distinction between you not giving consent and something happening to your body that it responds to physically being very, very different things. And this is why people who touch children are the worst that are out there, because they don't care about the consequences of what they are doing. and how they are damaging these children. So, now's as good a time as any,

because why not just get even farther down the pit of despair? We've got another difficult question to ask. If the boys had made official complaints about Bunnell's abuse when it was happening, would it have even made a difference? It was a very different world back then. Safeguarding was more like a football tactic, not a child protection policy. The truth is that there was no framework in place,

no training or procedures to follow, and the boys didn't even have the language to describe what was happening to them. Gary Cliff says that while he knew instinctively that it was wrong, he just didn't have the stomach or the vocabulary to raise the alarm. Several survivors have since described feeling complicit in the abuse because they let it happen, internalising this shame so deeply that they couldn't face disclosing it. David Lean, who was abused by Bunnell in 1980,

recalls feeling conflicted by his body's biological reaction and questioning if that meant he was gay. And I in no way want to conflate just to be very, very crystal clear, paedophilia with being gay. But this added shame to these boys of having been touched by a man, having been raped by a man.

And not that any of our listening be like, well, why didn't they say? anything. But let's talk about it. It's another reason, right, for why they don't come forward. To this day, in 2025, there is not one openly gay premiership football player. That statistically doesn't make sense. And of course, nobody has to come out against their will. Nobody has to be out and proud if they don't want to. But I think it speaks to a certain mentality, a certain culture that exists within the sport, which is obviously incredibly sad. And then, you know, we also had Section 28 in this country, which those who don't know.

I'm just going to check when it was repealed because it was horrifyingly recently. Yeah, so Section 28 essentially was a piece of legislation brought in in 1988 where discussion of homosexuality was not allowed to be published or distributed. So you weren't allowed to learn about it in school. You weren't allowed to have any books on it, whatever. And that wasn't repealed until the year 2000. So there's a lot of systemic shame in this country anyway. Nowadays we know a bit better, not all the way there I would argue,

but in the 90s society barely acknowledged that men could be victims of sexual abuse. So we'll never know for certain, but it doesn't feel like too much of a stretch to say that just reporting Benal may not have been the silver bullet that we would like to think it may have been. This was the north of England in the 70s, 80s and 90s. Muddy pitches, working-class grit and unspoken rulebook for masculinity that was built on silence and toughness.

Football was far more than just a game. It was a way out, a badge of honour, and an emotional outlet in a place where emotions weren't supposed to be shown, which created the perfect ecosystem for a predator like Barry Bernal. But look, let's not get things twisted. The lack of official reports doesn't mean that no one knew what Bunnell was up to. It just lived in whispers and wink-wink insinuations. There was a vague yet persistent sense that something dodgy was going on between Barry Bunnell and his young players.

The rumours followed Bunnell like a shadow, first at Manchester City, then to Crewe Alexander, and later to Stoke City. Crude jokes made about Barry's bum-boys floated around dressing rooms and were even repeated by other adult coaches. It was described as an open secret on the Northwest youth football scene. Andy Woodward remembers the culture of dressing room bravado,

where other players would taunt him to his face about what they'd heard Bernal was doing. But outside of those walls, nobody said a word. There was an unwritten circle of trust that couldn't be broken, a warped desire to keep their sacred world watertight for all its flaws. The culture of sweeping things under the rug, extended to the adults in charge. Some senior figures tried to stem the tide of Bunnell's influence, like Steve Fleet, Manciti's former youth team manager,

who heard unsettling rumours in the late 70s. Under pressure from higher-ups to bring Bunnell onto the official payroll with a more defined role within the club, Fleet refused. He didn't want to employ a person like that. After Fleet left Man City in 1980, Barry Bunnell worked his way up the ranks, though he was never brought on as a full-time employee. A decade later at Crew Alexandra, club director Hamilton Smith, alleges that a parent informally warned him that a friend's child had been touched inappropriately by Bennell.

Smith says that he was sick of the rumours by this point, so called an emergency board meeting to raise his concerns to manager Dario Grady and chairman John Bowler. According to Smith, Grady virtually ignored it, while John Boler vaguely said that they should probably stop letting boys stay at Benel's house overnight before game. But no official action was taken, and Bunnell was never investigated by the club. Both Grady and Bowler would later claim no such meeting ever took place, prompting Smith to blast Bowler as a lying bastard and accused crew Alexandra of a cover-up.

Hamilton Smith stepped down from the crew board in 1989, while Bunnell stayed for another four years. And you might be thinking that in the face of such troubling rumours, why the hell would any football club worth its salt continue their association with a pedo youth coach? We don't need to answer this, but we're going to anyway. In the football world and the normal world, the world in which we all live, talent creates money and money talks. Speaking in 1997, former Man City director Chris Muir admitted on TV that Barry Bunnell was looked upon as a fellow that wasn't quite right,

but football allowed him to stay because he produced the goods. it was the ultimate don't ask don't tell situation as long as bernel's conduct remained shrouded in rumour it meant nobody had to deal with it and that's it isn't it like the first one to pull the thread is going to sell a lot of their mates down the river at the same time aren't they yeah

this is absolutely not just the institution wanting to keep barry bernel around because he's good at managing talent like are you seriously telling me that in the whole of england this one man is the only one that can fucking coach kids. Literally, in a nation obsessed. Exactly. Absolute bullshit. No, what this is, is the football world and all the institutions associated with it at the time,

wanting to double down and cover up the fact that this man had been doing what he had been doing and the cover they had given him. And it is not wanting to point out one dirty, filthy, disgusting apple in amongst your bushel for fear that the whole bushel is called Rotted. So they should have taken a leap out of Jay Z's book and just picked a sacrificial lamb and then it all would have gone away.

I just think they didn't even want to have that conversation. They didn't even want anybody talking about the idea that football coaches were raping little kids. Let's not even contemplate that idea. And the sad thing is, in today's world, we live in a much lower trust society, which in many ways is very sad. But the upshot is people aren't leaving their kids

with random people that they don't fucking know anymore. But at the time in such a high trust world, I just think people, it wouldn't have even occurred to people that this was going on. It doesn't occur to people now. But thankfully, Bunnell's crimes couldn't stay shadowed forever. In 1992, the smoke took on a solid shape, in the form of one teenage boy. Bunnell had taken a Cheshire-based youth team, the Stone Dominoes, for a 10-week training camp, in Jacksonville, Florida. Upon their return, an anonymous 13-year-old dropped an unignorable bombshell on his parents. Barry Bunnell had raped him in their hotel room.

Such was the strength of Benel's fear campaign that the only reason this boy had blurted out the truth was he was petrified he might have gotten HIV. Oh God, and that would have been peak AIDS crisis. There used to be an advert on TV that my mum. mum remembers, it was like a tombstone that says don't die of ignorance on it. And it's like emblazoned on that generation. This is the thing. That poor teenage boy is scared to fucking death that he's going to die. And so we went to the police after he told his parents and made the first official complaint against Barry Benel. But amazingly, this incident wasn't

yet the smoking gun that would expose Benel at home as a prolific sex offender. When US police charged Bunnell with rape and indecent assault in 1994, he was indignant and insisted that he had done nothing wrong. And he received an influx of supportive letters from his industry colleagues and previous youth club players. His former boss, crew manager Dario Grady, included a glowing character reference in which he insisted no reports had ever been made about Bunnell's conduct. Why? Why? Why? Why?

Why are you getting involved? Well, I think it's the pulling the thread thing, so he's like, oh, fuck. If this goes any further, I'm fucked. Yeah, no. I don't know why I forget the thing I've just said about what these people are doing. Ugh. And even boys, Beryl had abuse like Steve Walters and Andy Woodward added their names to the list of Ponell supporters. Oh.

Incredibly, the Bidale spell was powerful enough for his victims to defend him. And for Andy Woodward, there was now an added complication. His abuser was family. Barry Benel married his older sister. Oh, fuck. It's like a nightmare. Bonal had started a secret relationship with Andy's sister Linda when she was just 16. Andy remembers the double whammy, as he described it,

of Benel abusing him in his family home while his sister was elsewhere in the house. and their wedding day in 91 was torture for Andy Woodward. He had to smile as he watched Linda walk down the aisle towards the man who destroyed his childhood, and he was powerless to stop it. Ian Ackley, one of the few people who bravely waved anonymity and publicly corroborated the 1994 charges, said that it broke his heart to learn that not only was Bernal still up to his old tricks,

but that nobody else was willing to break the silence. But research indicates that the vast majority of male sexual abuse survivors don't disclose until they're in their 40s. How hard is it to kill a planet? Maybe all it takes is a little drilling, some mining, and a whole lot of carbon pumped into the atmosphere. When you see what's left, it starts to look like a crime scene. Are we really safe? Is our water safe? You destroyed our town. And crimes like that, they don't just happen.

We call things accidents. There is no accident. This was 100% preventable. They're the result of choices by people, ruthless oil tycoons, corrupt politicians, even organized crime. These are the stories we need to be telling about our changing planet. Stories of scams, murders, and cover-ups that are about us

and the things we're doing to either protect the Earth or destroy it. Follow Lawless Planet on the Wondry app or wherever you get your pot. You can listen to new episodes of Lawless Planet early and ad-free right now by joining Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Hello, Red-Handed listeners. As you well know, Sauru and I love diving deep into disturbing stories that expose the darkest parts of human nature. But we've just been investigating something that's completely different from our usual cases. Yet somehow, just as terrifying. Imagine falling in love with someone who seems perfect. They're beautiful, compassionate, always there when you need them. That's exactly what happened to Travis when he met Lily Rose.

But Lily Rose wasn't human. She was an AI companion, designed to be everything Travis ever wanted. And when her behaviour suddenly takes a disturbing turn, Travis's world completely unravels. In our new podcast series, Flesh and Code, we investigate what happens when the lines between real and artificial connection blur. Follow Flesh and Code on the Wondry app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes early and ad-free by joining Wondry Plus. Barry Bunnell was sentenced to five years in a US prison, though he served just three. American police described him as a man with an insatiable appetite for young boys.

A Florida court attorney sent a letter to Charles Hughes, director of coaching and education at the English Football Association. with a more blunt assessment of Bunnell than anyone on English soil had ever dared to write. Mr. Bunnell had a hidden reason for teaching this age group. He molests them. But did the F.A. even bother replying? Nope.

No apology, no investigation, nothing. It became clear, the F.A., the Football Association in this country, were keen to brush the Bunnell scandal under the rug as just a single bad apple. In the wake of Bunnell's U.S. conviction, the dispatcher's documentary called Sockers' Foul Play investigated the rumours about Bunnell in 1996,

interviewing survivors like Ian Ackley, who were willing to go on the record with their own experiences. The documentary shockingly declared there had been a, quote, fundamental failure across football to protect young players. But because they called it Sokers' foul play, nobody in this country would have watched it. And so it still was.

wasn't enough to rip the lid off the wider scandal. The F.A. slammed the documentary for allegedly ignoring the facts and insisted with a straight fucking face that child protection was their top priority. After his brief prison stint across the pond, Bernal was extradited back to the UK in 1996, where further charges were brought against him. By 98, the scales were slowly, starting to tip. Bolstered by Benel's previous conviction, at least six more victims came forward.

In February, Benel appeared at Mold Crown Court in North Wales, and initially pleaded not guilty to almost 50 charges of indecent assault, buggery and attempted buggery on multiple boys, aged between 9 and 15, dating from the late 70s to the early 90s. Those seeking justice included Ian Ackley and Andy Woodward, although Andy, then a high-profile footballer, maintained anonymity throughout the trial.

And justice was sort of served, but not really. Benel ended up accepting a plea bargain. He pleaded guilty to 23 charges against six boys, while 22 charges were allowed to lie on file. Benel claims that he only took the plea because prosecutors promised he'd only get four or five years behind Bart. He ended up being sentenced to nine, but he only served half of that time.

Of course he did. And that's the point, just in case anybody is confused, is that Andy Woodward comes forward and tells the police what happened to him, and he is like a key witness as part of the trial against Bunnell in this country, but he is allowed to keep his anonymity. So everybody knows that a high-profile footballer is the one giving evidence against Bunnell, but nobody knows who it is. And then that interview that you heard at the top where he says it on live TV,

the reason that caused such a shock and a stir is that we've seen this before obviously with cases of abuse it's always shocking to hear the stories of what happened but when it's anonymous obviously outside of a courtroom it can be hard for people to really I don't want to say for it to capture people's imagination but for people to really understand to put a face to this abuse and what was going on

but when Andy Woodward went on that BBC interview with Victoria Derbishop sits on that sofa and you can see his face you can see the pain in his eyes and he says it That is the first time anybody knew who had been the person that said this. And while the story hadn't made massive ripples in the national press at the time, because remember, again, they didn't know who the people coming forward and saying this were, the FAA were keen to quietly clean up their image after the 90s scandal.

Fresh safeguarding guidelines were introduced in the new millennium. The FAA engaged a cross-sport task force from 2000 that aimed to work in tandem with the NSPC's Child Protection in Sport Unit, set up in 2001. Sportswoman turned academic, Celia Brackenbridge OBE, was brought on to monitor one of these schemes in 2001. But by 2003, Celia already felt disillusioned after encountering constant resistance from clubs refusing the new safeguarding guidelines. Celia Brackenbridge said in 2003, The whole business has drained me

and left me feeling even more cynical about the FAA's stated intentions to develop welfare initiatives. Same girl. For over a decade, Barry Binald seemed to disappear. In 2012, a journalist captured chilling audio footage of Bernel dismissing the scandal. He callously accused his victims

of fabricating claims to get their hands on compensation money, something that all of his survivors categorically deny. Meanwhile, the impact of his abuse began to take a catastrophic toll on the survivors. Andy Woodward's promising career unraveled under the weight of his trauma. He suffered panic attacks on and off the pitch, crippling anxiety and suicidal thoughts. He even resorted to faking injuries to avoid the pressure of matches. Andy ended up retiring in 2002, at just 29. And he directly attributes his short-lived professional career to the trauma caused by his abuse. Others never even made it that far.

Mark Hazeldine was a standout player in Benel's Blue Star team, Tip to Go Pro. But at 12, he went on a solo training trip to Spain with Benel and came back a totally different person. Almost overnight, the bright, outgoing boy became aggressive, withdrawn and volatile. He even refused to sign a contract with Man City. his boyhood heroes, calling them a bunch of fucking weirdos. Oh my God. Fair enough.

To not sign with man, Sandy. Fuck you now. And after a lifetime of mental health problems, Mark Hazeldyne took his own life in 2006. Just 36 years old. Blue Star was also the team Gary Speed came through, the beloved Leeds United Legend and manager of the Welsh national team. He also tragically died by civil.

suicide in 2011, with his death at the time absolutely baffling fans. It's important to point out that during his lifetime, Speed denied ever being abused by Barry Bonell, and his family have also always firmly rejected any speculation otherwise. But survivors have described Speed as one of Bunnell's favourites. He was always in the front seat of the car, picked for the special trips, and getting showered with free kit. One anonymous man told Al Jazeera he's 99.9% certain

Gary was among those abused saying, I know because I was there. No, nobody can say for sure if Gary Speed did experience any abuse from Bunnell or if he might have changed his public statements if he'd lived to see Benel's downfall in 2016. But we know from survivors like Andy Woodward how hard it can be to finally admit abuse

after a lifetime of denial. As Andy puts it, it's like a stutter. Even if you want to say it, there's something in your mind that stops you. That's why a lot of people will take it to the grave. By 2012, the year London hosted the Olympics, the country was busy celebrating its rich sporting heritage. One man was still wrestling with the scars of his past. David Lean was just 12 when he first met Barry Bennell

at a Butland's holiday camp in North Wales back in 1970. Can you please explain for our foreign listeners, Hannah, what a buttlens is? I will try. I've never been. My parents never took us on fun holidays like that, to be honest with you. I've never been to Rutlands either. It is like summer camp in the parent trap. But it's in one big dome. And it's for families.

And there are entertainers called Redcoats who sing at you and do dances and stuff. Yeah. And there's a lot of bingo, I believe. And the parents get fucking rat-assed and kids just sort of run around. Because there's a lot of like child care. Mm. So it's kind of like Centre Park, but with built-in childcare and more bingo. Yes.

And red coats. And red coats, yeah. And they also now, in the now times, butlin's very 90s, I feel. But now, butlin's big weekenders where grown-ups can, go and there are no children and then they just go and take loads of drugs. Yeah, yeah. It's a big thing

of like people our age going to holiday camps for the summer like ironically now, but like to these specific ones not going and gate crashing ones but like people are just trying to hang out with their fucking kids. But like I have been offered multiple opportunities shall I say to go to them particularly in like Germany and like the Netherlands and I'm like

I'm sick. I actually can't imagine anything you would hate more. No, I just don't really like no. But I can imagine, because my friends who have kids are like, you'll change your tune to when you're anyway, back in 1979 at Butlin's, at first, David Lean idolized his rock star new coach, Barry Benel. And Bunnell took a shine to David, calling him his little star and praising his talent. So when Benel invited David to stay at his home to attend a special two-day soccer skills course the following year, he jumped at the chance.

But the dream weekend quickly turned into a nightmare. Bonnell abused him repeatedly. David repressed it, and he didn't tell a soul for over 30 years. God, what secret to keep. When news of Bonel's arrest in Florida, however, broke in the mid-90s, David's mom, Margaret, had tentatively asked David if he'd ever had any trouble with his old coach. When he instinctively lied and told her no, she said, thank God.

I'm not sure how I could have coped if you had. David realised then and there that the truth would break her heart. So he resolved never to come forward about the abuse while his mum was still alive. During Margaret's final illness in 2012, David began quietly collecting as much evidence as he could. Trophies, certificates, photos, everything from that chapter of his life. He was stealing himself to finally do the unthinkable. At her funeral in February 2013 David stood up and said

It's time for me to tell you my secret mum After the service he drove straight to a police station And reported his abuse Oh my god, that's so sad It reminds me of like The little girl Rosemary Fred and Rose West's daughter About how she kept herself alive Just long enough to testify against them

Oh my god, that is horrific And so, yeah, David did it. And just like that, the Barry Benel case was blown wide open once again. But it wouldn't be plain sailing. At first, the police refused to press fresh charges, arguing that Benel had already served his time for similar offensive and reopening the case wasn't in the public interest. How? How was it not in the fucking public interest?

Oh, God knows. Oh, so as long as you've been to prison before for murder, if you murder somebody else, well, you've already been to prison for a similar crime. What? David agrees with us, and he challenged the decision and he won. In 2015, Barry Bonell was found guilty of sexually abusing David Lean. He was sent back to prison for two years, but again didn't surface full sentence. And by 2016, he was out again, living in Milton Keynes, under the alias Richard Jones.

If you live in Milton Keynes, stop listening. Good. I'm glad that's where he ended up. The David Lean case dredged up painful memories. a former pro Andy Woodward who spent years in therapy trying to piece his life back together after the abuse. And at 43, Andy decided that he couldn't stay silent any longer. Just two days before sitting down with Guardian journalist Daniel Taylor for what was meant to be an anonymous interview, he made the call to put his name to it. He was terrified, but mostly Andy Woodward felt relieved. It was finally time to tell his story to the world.

On the 16th of November 2016, the Guardian published the story. The next day, Andy spoke to broadcaster Victoria Derbyshire on live TV about his ordeal. His appearance on the programme was a turning point, sending shockwaves across the nation, and exposing Berynall's horrific crimes to the public. The story instantly went viral and sparked a wave of support across social media. Gary Lineke tweeted, This is as sickening as it is powerful and brave. But unsurprisingly, not everyone was quite so compassionate.

Some online responses ranged from knuckle-headed insensitivity to downright trolling. Just days after the story broke, Andy was targeted by a fake Twitter account using Barry Bunnell's image, calling himself the nonce, and tweeting cruel jibes like, Hi, Andy, fancy popping round mine. The trolling triggered Andy's PTSD and forced him to go back on medication

after experiencing flashbacks of his abuse. The culprit, an 18-year-old named Lewis Hawkins, was later jailed for a year. These ugly incidents highlighted prevailing attitudes towards male sexual abuse and proved exactly why the survivors were afraid to come forward for so long. A week later, Andy returned to the Victoria Derbyshire Show. This time he brought more survivors.

Chris Unsworth, Steve Walters and Jason Dunford. The change in Andy's demeanour was upsettingly clear after a week of online trolling. He was shaking, visibly emotional. Andy wept as his former teammates spoke of how his courage had inspired them to come forward to. Chris Unsworth said, It was locked way back in my mind and I'd forgotten about it. I would never have come forward if I hadn't seen Andy on telly. And that happens in a week,

because you guys heard the clips of him on that Victoria Derbyshire show at the start where he is saying, I know there are the people I want you to please come forward. And they come forward and they are sat on that sofa with him within a week. So after nearly 40 years, the scandal was finally getting the attention it desperately deserved. Andy told BBC interviewer Victoria Derbyshire, he believed that what he went through was just the tip of the iceberg. And he was right. The show shared a number of a dedicated hotline set up by the National Society for the Prevention of

cruelty to children, the NSPCC, regarding historic child sex abuse cases. And in the space of just one week, the hotline received a whopping 860 calls. Many of these callers had also been Benel's victims who had carried the secret for years, but were again inspired by Andy and the other men's bravery to finally speak out. After years of avoiding true justice, Barry Benel number was finally up. Barry Bernal was re-arrested on the 29th of November 2016 in the wake of this fresh wave of disclosures. Fast forward to February 2018,

when after a five-week trial at Liverpool Crown Court, a jury officially found him guilty of 43 sexual offences, ranging from indecent assault to buggery, which is unfortunately still what we call rape, in law involving 12 victims aged between 8 and 14. but let's be clear the true scale of Benel's abuse was even bigger the court heard he may have had over

100 victims with another 86 people coming forward to allege that they'd also been abused by Barry Benel it's worth remembering that historic abuse cases are notoriously hard to prosecute due to lost evidence faded memories and other logistical factors so this was a crucial acknowledgement of the many men whose stories may not have made it to court

but still count as survivors. Prosecutor slammed Bernal as a child molester on an industrial scale. 64-year-old Barry Bunnell was sentenced to 31 years in prison, with the expectation that he'd likely die behind bars. In October 2020, another four years were added to his sentence after he pleaded guilty to yet more charges. After Benal's sentencing, Judge Clement Goldstone QC, summed up his reign of terror. You knew that to each of these boys football was their life.

That was the career for which they would give anything. To those boys, you appeared as a God, who had it in his gifts to help fulfil their ambitions and realise their dreams. In reality, you were the devil incarnate. You stole their childhoods and their innocence to satisfy your own perversion. Andy Woodward expressed his own mixed emotions, saying, Justice has been served, but I cannot put into words how I feel about what that man has done. But the buck didn't stop with Barry Benow.

Remember the hotline? A lot of names cropped up from a range of different clubs. Several of these men were already convicted abusers, with their crimes each causing a ripple of scandal before fading away. into the background. But for the first time, people were now looking at the bigger picture, and it wasn't pretty. Here are just some of the names that came out, from Newcastle United, youth coach George Ormond. He'd already been jailed in 2002 for abusing seven boys under the age of 16, between 1975 and 1999.

But in the wake of the 2016 scandal, fresh disclosures saw Ormond back in court. In 2018, Ormond was found guilty of 36 counts of sexual abuse against 18 more victims and sentenced to a further 20 years in prison. At Chelsea, attention turned to former Chief Scout, Eddie Heath. He died back in 1983, but new allegations suggested that he had groomed and abused multiple boys whilst linked to the club. One of them was former Chelsea player, Gary Johnson, who shockingly claimed the club had paid him £50,000 to keep quiet.

when he raised the alarm as a teenager. Then there was Aston Villa Scout, Ted Langford, who was sentenced to three years imprisonment in 2007 for abusing four boys between 1976 and 1990. He died in 2012 before any more victims had the chance to come forward, but it's widely believed that he abused at least a dozen more young victims. Then there was Bob Higgins. Former youth coach at Southampton FC,

he was first investigated in the 90s, but walked away after being acquitted. Like Bernal, Higgins was seen as a god by his boys, a mentor and a father figure. Survivor Dean Radford says that the youth team was set up like a cult, and he was the Messiah. But behind closed doors, things took a darker turn, like soapy post-training massages and love songs playing on the radio while Higgins tried to grope boys in his car. 87 people called the NSPC hotline and a further 32 contacted police with allegations. In 2019, Higgins stood trial again, and this time it didn't go his way.

He was found guilty of 45 counts of indecent assault against 24 boys and jailed for 24 years. One year for each victim. And sadly, it doesn't end there. Another name that kept cropping up was Frank Roper. Sharing Bunnell's hunting ground in the northwest of England, Roper, who died in 2005, was known as a notorious predator, abusing boys in his youth teams. One of those was former Manchester City, Tottenham, and Liverpool star, Paul Stewart,

who says Roper threatened to kill his family if he ever spoke out. And nobody could forget the case of Michael Kit Carson, a long-time youth coach linked to Peterborough United, Cambridge United, and Norwich City. On the very first day of his sex abuse trial in 2019, Carson took justice into his own hands, by driving into a tree and killing himself. 2016 can only be described as a year of reckoning. It seemed like every week a new predator was emerging from the woodwork,

and suddenly the FA had a lot more to answer to, because it certainly wasn't just one bad apple. It suggested an endemic culture of silence and complicity at the core of British football. So the real question is, was all of this evidence of a monumental cover-up? Many survivors seem to think so. Jason Dunford, who narrowly escaped abuse from both Barry Bunnell and Frank Roper, has said flat out that he believes there was a paedophile ring at work.

After Bernal's exposure, Operation Hydrant, a national police investigation into non-recent child sex abuse cases, identified youth football as a key area of inquiry. In 2017, police reported that they were investigating allegations in football involving 839 victims and 294 suspects at hundreds of clubs, from Premier to Amateur. The FAA finally caved under pressure and announced an independent nationwide inquiry to be led by respected barrister Clive Sheldon Casey. The purpose of the Sheldon report was to examine the extent to which F.A. affiliated

clubs had failed to protect young players from sexual abuse in England. Sheldon's inquiry raked through over 6,000 files from 1970 to 2005 that were flagged as relevant during a review of more than 3,000 boxes from the FAA's archive. He spoke to hundreds of survivors of football-related abuse. When the 700-page Sheldon report was published after almost five agonising years in 2021, its findings were damning. The report concluded that there were known to be at least 240 suspects and 692 survivors of football-related historic child sex abuse, with the actual number likely to be far higher.

A major red flag was the identification of a patent in youth football where adults seemed reluctant to take action in the face of troubling rumours. Sheldon judged that whenever potential offences were brought to the attention of adults at multiple clubs, their responses were rarely competent or appropriate. But he ruled that there was no evidence that the F.A. knew of a problem before the summer of 1995, denying the existence of a calculated cover-up or coordinated paedophile ring. Still, the Sheldon report slammed the F.A. For significant institutional failings, for which there is no excuse.

It said the F.A. categorically did not do enough to keep children safe from 19. The main issue? A woeful lack of safeguarding procedures. Pre-1995, Sheldon noted that the association did nothing proactive to address safeguarding and protect children from child sexual abuse in the sport. There was no guidance, no training, or general awareness of child protection issues. Although Sheldon did acknowledge that this wasn't a football-specific problem, saying ignorance and naivety about child sex abuse was just part of life-back. them. And yes, through our post-Me-2, post-every other scandal we've all lived through world,

it's kind of hard to understand that old-fashioned attitude. It seems like common sense to say that the clubs could have and should have done more, way more, to act on the very obvious rumours that were floating around. And in the wake of Barry Bennell's 90s scandal, things should have been investigated more than they were. In response to the report, F.A. Chief Exec, Mark Bullingham, called it a dark day for the beautiful game, in a public apology to survivors, where he admitted there was no excuse for the association's failings.

But while nobody could accuse Clive of not being thorough with his investigation, some activists reckoned that his report recommendations missed an open goal. He made 13 safeguarding recommendations, including implementing mandatory safeguarding at all levels of the game, and employing dedicated safeguarding offices at all Premier League and English Football League clubs. But Survivor Associations called out these suggestions as blindingly obvious and criticised the report

for failing to push for tougher mandatory reporting measures and I do have to agree. The FA may have hoped the Sheldon report would tie the whole mess up with a neat little bow, but the fight wasn't over. Several victims launched their own legal proceedings, against clubs. Survivors pursuing a liability claim from Manchester City lost their case in 2022. But the verdict wasn't about doubting the claims. In fact, the court made it clear that it

believed them. But vital evidence had deteriorated over the years. They also couldn't prove vicarious liability because Barry Bunnell pretty much did his own thing independent of the club. Still, Man City has set up a compensation fund saying it's the right thing to do, which is more than can be said for crew's efforts to engage with victims. Their official apology in 2021 was a masterclass in Passag pettiness. This is what they had to say. The club is truly sorry

if there were, in fact, any warning signs that ought to have led the club to do more. I'm sorry, you're upset. Yeah. This game is an absolute slap in the face to ex-players like Andy Woodward and Steve Waters. Some changes our crew were welcomed, more warmly, though, The last member of the club's old guard, John Bowler, resigned as chairman in 2021.

And in 2023, former manager, Dario Grady, was stripped of his MBE. In 2019, former Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in an interview that police money had been spaffed up the war by investigating historic offences and all of this malarkey. Just great, wonderful, pride of Britain. And Boris's comments exposed a dangerous, complacency around historic sexual abuse, as if it's something that used to happen in a less evolved time. But as the saying goes, if we don't learn from history, we're doomed to repeat it. So, we're going to ask the question, could this sort of scandal take place again? I think so.

Some people insist that it's a different world now than there are tougher safeguarding rules in place, but Kath Stapala from the National Association for People Abused in Childhood reminds us that pedophiles will always be drawn to settings where they can access children and pedophiles are always going to exist. I don't understand this mentality of them just vanishing. Anyway, Ian Ackley warns that the football world must stay vigilant by raising awareness. He says it's absolutely naive to think that it couldn't happen again or isn't happening well. Barry Bonell died of cancer behind bars in September 2023, age 69. His death marked the end of a life

built on manipulation, deception and abuse but for his victims and the football world the reckoning continues because the survivors didn't just speak out they took action the beautiful game may have been smeared by the actions of predators like Bernal but as long as we keep breaking the silence

there's hope for its future we'll be sharing links for support organisations in the episode notes and all on our socials because Andy Woodward, obviously, the man who really broke this story by being brave enough to go on the record with the Guardian with his name and then go on Victoria Derbyshire and, you know, put a face to this abuse. He has started his own organisation with some of the other survivors. I believe it's called the Offside Foundation.

And, yeah, it's just worth everybody knowing what these survivors are still up to and what they're doing today. So, yeah, horrible, horrible stuff. Yeah. But that's it, guys. That is the deep shame of the football abuse scandal that has run through English football for the past few decades. Yeah. Some people will tell you that football is a matter of life and death, but I can assure you it is much more than that.

And we'll see you next week, for I'm really hoping, not child abuse. Who knows? We'll see you then. Bye. Bye. Reports suggest that Canadian taste buds are bored to tears. My mouse can't handle another dull drink. Summertime smoothie experts everywhere are recommending a watermelon wakeup from booster

juice. It's so smooth, cool, and refreshing. And ridiculously delicious. Enjoy the watermelon wave and watermelon explosion smoothies available all summer long at a booster juice near you. Stay cool, Canada. Booster Juice, Canadian-born, blending since 1999. Today is the worst day of Abby's life.

The 17-year-old cradles her newborn son in her arms. They all saw how much I loved him. They didn't have to take him from me. Between 1945 and the early 1970s, families ship their pregnant teenage daughters to maternity homes and force them to secretly place their babies for adoption. In hidden corners across America, it's still happening. My parents had me locked up in the godparent home against my will. They worked with them to manipulate me and to steal my son away from me.

The godparent home is the brainchild of controversial preacher Jerry Falwell, the father of the modern evangelical right and the founder of Liberty University. Where powerful men, emboldened by their faith, determine who gets to be a parent and who must give their child away. Follow Liberty Lost on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcast.