How a tennis coach’s abuse robbed young players of their dreams
Sunday, 2 June 2024
Warning: This article includes details of sexual abuse.
Teenagers Willa* and Jo* lived on opposite sides of the globe but both had dreams of one day achieving world tennis titles. Then they met the charismatic, popular and accomplished coach Richard Barry. Barry secretly sexually abused them for years. The only way the two young women could escape was by walking away from the game they loved. Edward Gay reports.
A tennis coach subjected two teenagers to years of sexual abuse and destroyed their dreams of one day playing their beloved sport on the world stage.
Richard Barry is serving a prison sentence of nine years and nine months after being found guilty of two charges of rape, one of sexual violation and one of being indecent with a girl, following a 12 day jury trial at the Auckland District Court in 2023.
“Both were highly talented sports women whose dreams of sporting success on the world stage were stolen by your offending against them,” Judge John Bergseng told the 54 year-old at his sentencing in October.
The survivors, Jo* and Willa* have told Stuff that the only way they could escape Barry’s toxic sexual abuse was to walk away from the game they loved.
They are speaking out in the hope that sharing their stories will make elite tennis, and sport in general, safer for young people.
The women are calling on parents to have up-front and honest conversations with their children in the hope signs of grooming will be spotted early.
They also want to see tennis authorities take more responsibility for the young people in their care, especially elite players who develop intense one-on-one relationships with their coaches, who effectively help or hinder in making their dreams come true.
***
Jo* was 15 years-old when she was first abused by Barry.
In 1999, at the age of 17, the board of Tennis Auckland called her to a meeting and asked her about a sexual relationship with Barry who was 31 years-old at the time.
She says Barry coached her to tell the board there had only been one incident.
Jo repeated the falsehood to the board, a group of people she did not know.
She says there was no offer of counselling and no one called the police.
“Why didn’t they do anything?… I wasn’t in a frame of mind to even know what the hell was going on. I didn’t realise I had been groomed and they were the adults.”
Barry was fired but he continued coaching tennis in Auckland.
Graham Pearce was the chief executive of Auckland Tennis at the time. He told Stuff he doesn’t recall what happened.
Asked why the police were not called, Pearce said if he could remember he would answer questions but he could not.
Retired Detective Sergeant Norm Sowter was the complaints commissioner with Tennis Auckland at the time and recalls the matter being referred to him.
“I can remember giving [Barry] a real’ bloody good verbal and, under Auckland Tennis, I had him removed from coaching the juniors.”
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Sowter says he doesn’t recall the intricacies 25 years later but the matter was dealt with “in-house” and did not go to the police.
“From memory, the girl’s mother didn’t want it to go any further.”
In 2010, more than a decade after losing his job, Barry was coaching young players overseas and needed reference letters to get a visa.
One of the references, seen by Stuff, is from Alan Chester whose tenure as chair of Tennis Auckland began five years after Barry was fired.
In his letter, Chester says he had known Barry was “respected as an excellent coach”.
His letter says coaches rarely receive the accolades they deserve.
“Nevertheless, coaches like Richard continue to toil at their profession simply because they share a common love for the sport as well as its participants.”
Chester, who was later awarded an Order of New Zealand Merit for services to sport, wrote Barry had coached some of the country’s top junior players.
“I wish him all the very best in his future endeavours and would have no hesitation in vouching for his character and integrity,” he wrote in 2010.
Chester told Stuff he only learned of Barry’s convictions a month ago from a tennis friend.
“I was very surprised.”
Chester says he had not carried out any due diligence before writing the reference.
“I would’ve written on what I understood.”
He went on to say that despite being embedded in the New Zealand tennis community, he knew nothing about the incident that went before the board.
Barry had a second reference from Nick Hill, the previous head of the Government sport funding organisation SPARC (now Sport New Zealand).
Hill’s reference, also written in 2010, says he relied on Barry to help with a funding review of elite tennis in 2005.
“I consider Richard an expert in his field, and do not hesitate to recommend him as such to others,” he wrote in 2010.
Hill would go on to head the Commerce Commission and is now the chief executive of Tātaki Auckland Unlimited, the Council’s economic and cultural arm.
Hill told Stuff that in 2010 he was completely unaware of why Barry had left Tennis Auckland. He did not know of Barry’s sexual abuse of young players before Stuff contacted him.
“I’m really sorry to hear all of that, it’s really upsetting.”
Barry used the references to get a visa and continue working as an elite tennis coach overseas.
He went on to groom and sexually abuse another teenager.
***
Barry’s sexual abuse began in the 1990s.
Jo* was a keen badminton player but when she was 10 years-old and having a “casual whack” at tennis with her parents, she was spotted by a coach and invited to join a squad.
Two years later she was playing tournaments and getting serious.
By the age of 14 she was being coached by Barry.
Her training schedule was gruelling.
Most days Jo would go to tennis practice at 7am before school for an hour and then hit the court again after school. On top of that she’d have two private lessons with Barry every week.
Things weren’t good at home for Jo - her family life was far from perfect and she describes herself as “prime real estate” to be taken advantage of.
She says as a teenager she was eager to please adults and keep everyone happy.
“I was very obedient… I had this dream of becoming a tennis player and I would have done anything to make that happen.”
Barry’s grooming started early.
Jo remembers him making “ambiguous” comments in the car as he drove her to school after training.
“He'd say stuff like, ‘oh, you smell really good’,” says Jo.
Barry wanted to know everything about her life, how school was going and what was happening in her relationships. He excused his prying questions on account of tennis being a mental game and that he needed to know if anything in her private life could affect her performance on the court.
Tennis became her life - there was little time for normal teenage socialising and she had few friends outside school.
“Pretty much my whole life just revolved around him.”
Then there was a tournament organised close to Barry’s home in Glen Innes.
The plan was Jo would spend the night at Barry’s place and he’d take her to the tournament in the morning.
Court documents released to Stuff show that night, while the pair watched television, Barry began touching Jo’s legs.
She initially froze and then panicked as her coach began kissing her before forcing her to do a sex act.
Jo told no one of the abuse. She was 15 years-old and Barry was 29.
That incident would form one of Barry’s criminal charges.
And although Jo says the abuse continued, Barry was not charged with further offending against Jo.
“I was stuffed from that point on because he never acknowledged it, he never even spoke about it…
“If I said something I would potentially lose tennis.”
Jo acknowledges the idea of a teenage girl staying at her male coach’s home now sounds strange.
“It’s this elite level, it’s a level where you’re committed 100% and you trust your coaches… you’re young and impressionable and you don’t have any knowledge of anything else because all you know is tennis.”
She says Barry’s sexual abuse continued until she was 19 years-old.
Jo says it was like Barry and her were linked but the relationship was “sick” and unhealthy.
She says the relationship of coach and player is ideal for a child sex offender.
“You’ve got that invisible rope that you have, tied together, because you've got so much energy invested in each other.
“I’ve blocked it out. I’ve literally forgotten a whole chunk of my life. Because I think it was just survival… ‘How do I get through this, what have I done?’ It was all very much self-blaming. ‘Let’s just not even think about what’s going to happen if somebody finds out’.”
But eventually someone did.
That someone was another tennis player - a teenager who Jo thinks had a crush on her.
“He read my diary and he ripped a page out and he took it to Tennis Auckland.”
Jo says Tennis Auckland held some kind of inquiry into her “relationship” with Barry before summoning her to appear before the board.
But before the meeting, Jo says Barry coached her to say “it just happened once”. Jo did as Barry asked.
Jo says Barry got fired.
She says, a year later the only way to end the relationship with Barry was to give up the game she loved and that she had dedicated the last four years of her life to.
Barry eventually moved overseas.
***
Willa was about to turn 15. She was playing local tournaments and wanted to take her game to the “next level”.
She describes herself as sociable, out-going, doing well in school and passionate about tennis.
Barry was coaching at a youth tennis camp when Willa and her parents were introduced to him.
Willa’s parents were impressed and employed Barry to coach their daughter.
Willa’s game improved almost immediately and she was soon moving up the rankings.
“I thought he was God’s greatest gift,” she says.
He was soon convincing her parents to take her out of school and have her home-schooled so she could devote more of her time to tennis.
“I was not super excited to be away from my friends. But ‘if this is the sacrifice I have to make…’
”
Barry and Willa spent hours everyday in each other’s company.
Willa describes an intense regime that started with a run at 6am, then breakfast, followed by on-court training until noon, an hour for lunch and then back on the court or in the gym until 5pm. Then she would do her school work.
“He had groomed me throughout that year.”
She says Barry also groomed her family, building a rapport with her father. He would often eat dinner with Willa and her parents and would even tag along on family holidays.
But Barry would also punish Willa if she ever went out with friends.
“He would call and text my dad and be: ‘She's completely going crazy’, or: ‘She's just not focused enough and she's out with her friends too late. She has training in the morning’.
“So my friendships fell off.”
Then, two weeks after her 16th birthday, the abuse began when the pair were at an out-of-town tournament.
”He was a very charismatic, bubbly person. And it would be really hard for people to believe… no one would believe me, because he's always so nice and charming.”
Willa was scared and confused.
“I was playing two games. I was playing his game and I was playing tennis.”
Her game suffered and she describes herself as a “wreck”, struggling to deal with Barry’s sexual abuse in silence.
Willa says her personality also changed. The once social teenager withdrew into herself.
Anytime she stepped out of line - spent time with friends or, heaven forbid, showed any interest in having a boyfriend - Barry would subject her to “punishment drills”.
“He would run me side to side [on the court] the entire two hours. Or he would just scream and yell at me and chuck rackets and throw balls at me. It just was ugly.”
She said she was dependent on him and, in her teenage mind, she could not survive without him.
The pair eventually travelled to Australia and New Zealand where the abuse continued.
Court documents show Barry raped Willa twice while the pair stayed in New Zealand.
Willa was 17 years-old. Barry was 40.
It was those episodes that became the subject of later charges.
Barry would only face justice for his sexual abuse committed in New Zealand.
***
Years would pass before Willa eventually met the man who is now her husband. One day she decided to tell him what Barry was doing to her.
Initially when he threatened to tell her family, Willa told him not to.
“I didn't think that they would believe me, but I also wouldn't be able to handle the pain and hurt that they would go through either.”
She later changed her mind.
Willa says her family was shocked and upset by the news.
Some time passed before Willa decided to lay a formal complaint. It was the thought of Barry going back to New Zealand, slipping into another club role and sexually abusing another young woman that inspired her to act.
She remembered Barry had mentioned coaching Jo. Willa found Jo on social media and sent her a message.
The message read something close to: “Look I have a really hard thing to talk to you about…”
Jo responded a short time later with: “Yes, this had happened to me too.”
She remembers receiving Willa’s message out of the blue and instantly knowing what she was referring to.
Eventually Willa would travel back to New Zealand to lay a formal complaint with police.
Jo says she initially went to the police station as a support person for Willa but, after talking to the police, she was also made a complainant in the case.
***
Despite being found guilty, Barry maintained his innocence. He had no remorse at his sentencing hearing.
Judge Bergseng said a pre-sentence report written by a probation officer found Barry had an inflated sense of entitlement, an inability to maintain professional boundaries and sexual deviancy.
He noted Barry posed a “high risk” of future harm to teenage women.
“Mr Barry, I have, throughout the course of your trial and at this sentencing today, the strong impression that you do not understand the drivers of your offending, nor do you understand the harm that you have caused these two young women.
”
***
Barry’s criminal record is likely to preclude him from ever working with young people in the future.
But Willa and Jo say while a lot of reliance is placed on police checks, Barry didn’t have a record before 2023, despite his sexual abuse dating back to the 1990s.
Jo wants parents to have tough conversations with their children.
Willa agrees and encourages parents not to be brushed off by their children or their coaches.
“Keep an eye out, it’s always important. Richard got to the point where he didn't let my parents travel with me to my tournaments.”
She says situations in which a young person is isolated and completely reliant on the coach are potentially dangerous.
Both women also advocate for a player welfare officer who proactively checks in with players, particularly those playing elite sport.
Willa says she’d like to see sporting organisations hire survivors, psychologists and others to teach officials and players what to look out for.
“This idea of parents, children, coaches, teenagers and executives learning about the subtleties of these behaviours and knowing what to look out for, will give our sports a start to transform into an environment where people of all ages can feel safe.”
Willa also has a challenge for sporting organisations and the people who work in them: Do not turn away.
“I have noticed that it is easier for people to turn a blind eye than to ask someone if they are okay. The signs are there, whether people choose to believe them or not, they will always be there. My goal here, especially with this article, is to change that societal norm.”
Some things have changed in Tennis since the 1990s.
As recently as this year, all Tennis New Zealand coaches and volunteers who spend time with young people are required to be police checked.
There is also a code of conduct that includes the sentence: “Refrain from initiating a sexual or inappropriate relationship with any participant and also discourage any attempt by a participant to initiate a sexual relationship, explaining the ethical basis of the refusal.”
Tennis New Auckland’s CEO Rohan West describes child protection in the 90s as “the wild west”.
He says nowadays if a complaint like Jo’s came before the board, it would be referred to the police.
“Without a question.”
West says “safety officers” have been appointed in clubs who liaise with complainants and the complainant would never be brought before a board.
He says part of the safety officer role includes being the “go-to person” for players to raise concerns. They must be completely separate from the coaching staff.
West says he sympathises with Willa and Jo.
“It’s a terrible, terrible situation that no player of any sport coming up through the ranks should ever be subjected to and, to me, it’s all on the perpetrator. That is an absolutely terrible and vile range of behaviours to perpetrate on young vulnerable athletes.”
He says Tennis Auckland have made strides in recent years and will constantly enhance its player welfare policies.
*Not their real names
Sexual violence: where to get help
Rape Crisis 0800 88 33 00, click link for local helplines.
Victim Support 0800 842 846.
Safetalk text 4334, phone 0800 044 334 webchat safetotalk.nz or email support@safetotalk.nz.
The Harbour Online support and information for people affected by sexual abuse.
Women’s Refuge 0800 733 843
Male Survivors Aotearoa Helplines across NZ, click to find out more (males only).
If you or someone else is in immediate danger, call 111.
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