BBC report club sacked a scout accused of sexual abuse 1988 but didn't report it

[cdbearsfan]

They are now. I'm not sure such procedures were in place in 1988.

[passport1]

'Mr Brien, aged 18 or 19 at the time, claimed he had "two or three" conversations with Mr Richardson and another senior figure at the club, but was put off from going public with the allegations.
Mr Brien said he was asked: "Do you really think you can put up with the obscenities from the terraces?"
He felt he had been effectively told to "sweep the matter under the carpet and keep quiet", he added.'

That's the but that is disturbing and who's to say that attutude may well have influenced the parents decision.

[Havencheese]

Collected bins at schools...reading that made me shudder.

[cdbearsfan]

How come Richardson is named but the "other senior figure" isn't?

[teamvillage]

It's not something I've desperately wanted to be involved with, but I've had quite a lot of professional involvement in relation to child sexual abuse cases over the last few years (I basically work as General Counsel to an organisation that's had a number of claims against it, and much publicity surrounding it).

Yes, this was not uncommon in the late 1980s, whether in football, or the church, or the BBC, or schools. That doesn't make it right either by today's standards or what should have been the standards in those days.

It will be really difficult to get a clear picture of what happened here. The paper trail will be thin if there's anything at all written down. SGT can't speak for himself of course and Doug's recollection may be patchy due to age and lapse of time. I doubt there will be clear policies about where the buck stops with this matter (nowadays policy will be to report the matter to a designated safeguarding officer, who will have relationships with the Local Authority Designated Officer and the police. That person would then report the matter and liaise with the external agencies).

The key point, which needs drumming home at every possible opportunity, is that you don't just report things to the police to get people arrested and convicted. It can help stop there being a *next* victim, not just provide justice for the last victim.

[Meanwood Villa]

I think it's important not to be too defensive on this because it's our club. If it can be demonstrated clearly that people at the club contributed to hushing this up or put pressure on the victims not to report it to the police then that's a disgrace and those involved should be held to account, where possible.

[teamvillage]

Absolutely, Meanwood.

[auntiesledd]

I think it's important not to be too defensive on this because it's our club. If it can be demonstrated clearly that people at the club contributed to hushing this up or put pressure on the victims not to report it to the police then that's a disgrace and those involved should be held to account, where possible.

Absolutely.

[wittonwarrior]

What has happened, happened no doubt there will be a class civil action and the insurers will pay out.  It's important that this then is the end of the matter in so far that the measures in place now are watertight.

I presume we are no different to several other sports clubs.  Btw I am ashamed of the villa but nothing surprises me in football

[Simon Page]

I don't think the timing has anything to do with Taylor. It came out when it came out because Tony Brien was due on the Derbyshire show today. Not massively happy with the headline of this piece, but if you follow the claims and facts you find the thing Villa did wrong was not go to the police themselves. Whether they could or should have done that is up for some debate.

Tony Brien was abused by Langford at Dunlop Terriers. It seems he plucked up the courage to report it to Dave Richardson after Richardson had joined us and Langford was a scout for us. Probably worth remembering how scouts were employed back then when youth set ups were more disparate. Richardson, it seems, did absolutely the right thing and informed Graham Taylor and Doug Ellis. It also looks like they took it seriously enough to speak to other victims and their parents. The families decided they didn't want to involve the cops. At this point, should the club have gone to the police anyway and hope others come forward? Probably, and I believe the guidance now is that you report it. But the club did then sack Langford, or perhaps more precisely stopped using him as a scout.

This bit could be disturbing depending on context:

Mr Brien said he was asked: "Do you really think you can put up with the obscenities from the terraces?"
He felt he had been effectively told to "sweep the matter under the carpet and keep quiet", he added.

If he was asked that with an undercurrent of "shut up son or the fans will crucify you" it is diabolical. If he was told what would likely happen and that he needs to have his eyes open and be prepared for a tough time, it's probably good advice.

[Gareth]

Also without wishing to defend the indefensible but it seems the article seems keen to rightly hammer the football clubs, however, seemingly absolves the parents of the responsibility they surely had to go directly to the police. 

It is to be hoped that safeguards are in place nowadays to protect the young boys and girls as well as the thousands of coaches / scouts who do a wonderful job and at the same time weeding out the scum who use the game as their vehicle to abuse.

[adrenachrome]

The Daily Heil have piled in with an article with the headline Tony Brien recalls his horror as Aston Villa swept his sexual abuse by club scout Ted Langford 'under the carpet'.

[Scratchins]

Simon Page is right that there are 2 interpretations of the comments made to Tony Brien. If it was an attempt to silence him then it was totally wrong.  Remembering those days and the vile abuse thrown at players, if it was to warn him of the consequences then it had to be said. Going back to then, attitudes were very different and public perception had an element of ‘they must have done something to look as though they were asking for it’ –although used more against females than males.  Going to the police against the wishes of the parents would also be questionable.
Thankfully times have changed.
Anyone watching BBC Midland News last night would have got the impression that the abuse happened while he was with Villa.

[Dave]

Guardian reporting...

"The independent inquiry into football’s sexual-abuse scandal has heard claims that Graham Taylor, the former England manager, was involved in a cover-up at Aston Villa which led to other boys being exposed to a paedophile who was working for the club as a scout and later convicted of a string of offences over a 13-year period.

Taylor is alleged to have discouraged Tony Brien, one of Ted Langford’s victims, from reporting what had happened and told him, according to evidence presented to the inquiry, that he should “move on” after the teenager informed Villa in the 1987-88 season that he knew from personal experience, aged 12 to 14, that boys were at risk, having been abused at a feeder club for Leicester City.

Taylor died in January this year, revered as a hugely popular figure after his long managerial career, but the inquiry is also looking at a separate allegation relating to his first spell at Villa, from 1987 to 1990, that another of Langford’s victims came forward with information that could have saved other boys from similar ordeals.

As well as evidence from Brien, the barrister in charge of the inquiry, Clive Sheldon QC, has heard a claim that one boy told Villa what had happened and Taylor subsequently visited him at home with another member of staff. The allegation, again, is that Taylor discouraged the boy from taking it further.

In Brien’s case, he alleges that Taylor spoke to him on the telephone and told him that if the story reached the newspapers it would make the player, then at the start of his professional career, a target for terrace taunts. Taylor, Brien says, asked him to imagine what it would be like hearing the crowd’s obscenities every week. Brien, who was 18 and had just broken into Leicester’s first team, claims the message was: “Can you really be doing with the abuse from the terraces?”

The police were never informed and new evidence shows Langford, previously a scout for Leicester, continued working for Villa until the summer of 1989, raising questions for one of England’s biggest clubs about what they knew, what they did about it and how many boys potentially suffered as a result.

The Guardian has seen one letter on Villa-headed notepaper that has Dave Richardson, then the club’s assistant manager, inviting one boy to a four-day training course in March 1989 and explaining that “exact arrangements will be given by our representative Mr T Langford”. The boy in question has reported he was abused by Langford from 1987 to 1989, including at Villa’s training ground.

Richardson, who went on to have key roles in youth development for the Football Association and the Premier League, has chosen not to comment while the inquiry is ongoing but has clearly stated on previous occasions, including a statement issued by his lawyers, that the club were first warned in 1987, leading to an internal investigation and Langford’s sacking.

Yet other official papers, also seen by this newspaper, show that Langford continued to be paid for up to two years after that point. Langford, a part-time scout in the club’s youth set-up, was paid throughout the entire 1987-88 and 1988-89 seasons. His final payment came in June 1989 when Langford was sacked in the wake of other allegations that Villa did not report to either the police or the FA."

[Meanwood Villa]

Doesn't sound good. Please let's not have comments about the culture of the time and so on. If as an institution Villa had information that could have possibly stopped other boys being abused, withholding it is shameful whichever way you look at it.