Barry Bennell victim says paedo football coach belongs 'in a hole in the ground'
The worst paedophile coach in British football history will soon be where he belongs ‘in a hole in the ground’ after his death in prison, his victims said on Monday.
Barry Bennell, 69, was serving a 34-year sentence after being convicted of multiple child sex offences. He was the worst paedophile in the history of the British game and targeted one of his victims, Ian Ackley, more than 1,000 times between 1979 and 1983.
A ‘star maker’ who worked for Crewe Alexandra and Manchester City, Bennell was jailed for 30 years in 2018 after being convicted of 52 child sexual offences against 12 boys. He was ordered to serve an additional four years in 2020 after pleading guilty to other offences against two boys. He was described as ‘the devil incarnate’ while acting like a footballing god to the children in his care.
Ian, 54, of London, now working as a survivor support advocate for the Professional Footballers’ Association, said: “He is finally going where he deserves to be, in a hole in the ground. I have helped to prevent him from causing harm to others and helped to get justice for others, and I am happy with that. I can hold my head high, walk away and put this in the past. But it will take a while to process the news of his death.”
In 1994, Bennell was filmed outside a court in Jacksonville, Florida after he was found guilty for the first time of a sexual offence against a boy while on tour there. He served less than two years of a four-year sentence and told a TV reporter: ‘He was not a little boy, he was bigger than me’ when asked about pleading guilty to the rape of a child.
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Arrested on his return to the UK, he would admit only one less serious charge involving Ian when jailed for nine years for 24 offences against boys at Chester crown court in 1998. Ian recalled: “I was told that he would be handcuffed, put on a plane in America then held in custody in the UK for offences against myself.
“Six of the offences were allowed to lay on file, he was only prepared to plead to the least serious. So what he served was the equivalent of 15 months.”
Ian Ackley, seen in this picture, is one of the victims of paedophile football scout Barry Bennell (DAILY MIRROR)Bennell took Ian as a promising youth team player on trips to Butlins in Wales and ‘training camps’ in the UK and Spain. They were a front for the ritual abuse as he groomed him with promises of his big break.
When Bennell was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court in 2018, Recorder of Liverpool Judge Clement Goldstone QC said he “may well die in prison”. His final prison sentence, in 2020, was the fifth time he had been jailed.
At that hearing, the court was told he had a detached retina after being attacked in prison and was in remission from throat cancer.
Bennell, a former Manchester City scout, abused boys he coached in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s. After serving time in Florida for raping a British boy on a 1994 football tour in America, he faced prison sentences in Britain in 1998, 2015, 2018 and 2020.
Ian, 54, of London, now working as a survivor support advocate for the Professional Footballers’ AssociationHe was named and shamed again by Crewe youth team player Andy Woodward in 2016, days before former Spurs and England star Paul Stewart told the Mirror of his abuse ordeal for the first time at the hands of another junior coach, Frank Roper, now dead.
Following his convictions in 2018, more than 80 victims came forward to report abuse by Bennell. As he was convicted, Gary Cliffe, a former young star who became a police officer, read out his personal statement and then approached the glass dock, asking calmly: ‘Barry. Barry. Why?’
In 2020, Owen Edwards, prosecuting, said it would be the last case against him after a decision to proceed only with the most serious offences.
He said Bennell was responsible for “industrial sexual abuse of boys”, as well forging the careers of some top stars. He abused boys at his homes, where he had arcade games and exotic pets including a puma and a monkey, and on trips away and in his car.
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A Prison Service spokesperson said: “Prisoner Barry Bennell died at HMP Littlehey on 16 September 2023. As with all deaths in custody, the Prisons and Probation Ombudsman will investigate.”
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