Former Manchester City Coach, Barry Bennell jailed 31 years for sexual assault
barry bennell
Former Manchester City coach, Barry Bennell has been sentenced to 31 years in prison for abusing 12 boys he coached between 1979 and 1991. The judge that pronounced the sentence on Monday branded him “sheer evil”.
64 year old Bennell, who also coached other teams, was found guilty of dozens of child sexual offences, including indecent assault, buggery and attempted buggery.
Police have said more complainants have come forward since the case started, which brings the number of possible victims to more than 100. “You were the devil incarnate. You stole their childhoods and their innocence to satisfy your own perversion,” Judge Clement Goldstone said as he read out the sentence in a court in Liverpool, northwest England. “Your behaviour towards these boys in grooming and seducing them before subjecting them to, in some cases, the most serious, degrading and humiliating abuse was sheer evil.”
Bennell, who has already served three jail terms sum total of 15 years for similar offences involving 16 other victims, stared at the floor and nodded as Goldstone handed down the sentence. Some members of the public began to applaud as he was sent down, but the judge ordered them to stop.
Victims spoke of how the former football trainer had a “power hold” over them as they dreamed of becoming professional footballers. Bennell’s latest crimes emerged in late 2016 when former Liverpool and Tottenham star Paul Stewart broke his 40-year silence and revealed how he was abused as a teenager, shortly after former Crewe player Andy Woodward went public with allegations against Bennell. The case has sparked wider allegations of sexual and physical abuse of boys at football clubs across Britain in the 1970s and 1980s, some of whom went on to become heroes of the terraces and international stars.
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