Tennis Auckland appoint safeguarding officer to help protect young players from abuse

Tuesday, 20 August 2024

Tennis Auckland has taken another step to help protect the safety of players.

Safeguarding office Tracey O’Connor will be available to anyone who has concerns.

CEO Rohan Webster says they can never guarantee that a coach won’t cross the line.

Tennis Auckland has appointed its first-ever safeguarding officer in a move to help stamp out any inappropriate behaviour from coaches towards young players.

Across the sporting landscape, stories continue to appear about coaches who sexually assault or groom athletes, with Stuff reporting in June about New Zealand tennis coach Richard Barry, who sexually abused two young girls.

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.

In April, Blenheim-based gymnastics coach Gregory Pask was sentenced to 15 years and nine months in prison for committing more than 250 sexual offences against young girls in his care.

The most famous internationally in recent years is that of Larry Nasser, who was team doctor to the US women’s national gymnastics team and was sentenced to up to 175 years in prison for decades of sexual abuse.

Tennis Auckland is determined to do everything it can stamp out anything like this happening again in the region, so it has appointed former professional Tracey O’Connor as its inaugural safety officer.

“ Unfortunately, in the last few months, we've all seen some stories in the media where sports participants have not been protected,” Tennis Auckland CEO Rohan West said.

“There have been some really horrific stories and that's across multiple sports and goes back many years.

“So many sports have had these issues and these demons to deal with and it's absolutely vital that a sport and an organisation has the protection of its participants at its heart, adopts these sorts of policies and appoints safeguarding officers across the board and they have to be independent.”

West said it’s crucial O’Connor operates separately from Tennis Auckland so there could never be an accusation of a cover-up and anyone who gets in touch with her will have peace of mind that if they have an issue, they have someone reliable, trustworthy and independent to go to as their first port of call.

O’Connor says she was a victim of this type of crime when she was a young player and she now wants to help those who’ve had their own experiences.

“ This was something that impacted me when I was a young athlete and I wanted to give back to tennis and support anybody else that may be going through similar situations,” O’Connor said.

“As it's set up, I’ll receive emails from anybody who would like an independent opinion on anything to do with abuse, discrimination, those sorts of things.”

O’Connor believes this is still a problem in sport and the recent court cases highlight this.

She hopes any tennis players in Auckland who have concerns, will get in contact with her.

“If somebody is going through that situation right now absolutely reach out and know that their call will be confidential,” she said.

“I just hope to be somebody that they can speak with.”

West believes taking the extra step of securing a safeguarding officer introduces an extra level of protection for players, although he admits it’s impossible to bring in anything that would stop an athlete ever being sexually abused again.

“I believe we're well set up now to ensure that the opportunities are minimised,” he said.

“Unfortunately, humans can be pretty nasty creatures and you can never say that you're going to stamp the issues out completely, because it's down to individuals to make good choices about their behaviour and not go down any dark paths.

“But what we are doing is to give the participants as many safeguards as possible to ensure that those things don't happen.”

To contact Tracey O’Connor on any safeguarding or whistle-blower issue email her at safeguarding@tennisauckland.co.nz

Those outside the Auckland region can contact Tennis NZ at: ppofficer@tennis.kiwi

Or call 0800 NZTENNIS