TV presenter Charlie Webster broke down in tears as she recalls the horrific abuse she faced at the hands of her running coach in a new BBC documentary.
At the age of 15, the presenter was abused by her athletics coach, Paul North, who was convicted of multiple counts of sexual assault and one count of rape in 2002 and jailed for 10 years.
In a new BBC documentary Nowhere to Run: Abused by Our Coach, she detailed the first time North assaulted her, suggesting a private session to help improve her bladder control.
Charlie, 38, was living with a violent and controlling stepfather and would sometimes wet herself in her bedroom rather than going to the toilet, meaning she faced issues with her bladder function.
She recalled being ‘frozen’ with fear as North sexually abused her, and said that because the assault was not ‘done in a violent way’ it was more difficult to spot, adding that ‘people can’t spot the bruises in your head’.
“I used to need the toilet a lot, it really stems from home because I was really scared of my stepdad so sometimes I wouldn’t go to the toilet and I would wet myself in my room,” she said.
“Going to the toilet became a really bad thing for me, it became a problem in training. My coach approached me about that, he said to me ‘I know you’ve got difficulty with going to the toilet, the problem is the muscles around your bladder are weak. I know what’s going to help you’.
“I was so desperate for somebody to take that away, this was the first time he told me to take my pants off and moved my knickers with one hand and with quite a lot of pressure and put his fingers inside me.
“I remember thinking ‘This is not nice, this is uncomfortable but this is going to help me, this is going to solve that problem’.”
She became emotional as she said: “I think sometimes I would just be frozen with “What is this, what am I supposed to do? And just focus on the ceiling.
“I just would take myself away I think. He just talked to me the whole time, I’d almost wish it had been done in a violent way, because then it wouldn’t have been so confusing and people would spot the bruises, people don’t spot the bruises in your head. I felt so, so alone.'”
Charlie never told any of her friends in the running club, some of whom where also being abused by North, and says that it “became my own secret that I pushed really far down.”
He was arrested when Charlie was 19 and she recalled reading a newspaper article detailing his crimes: “It was only then I realised I wasn’t the only one he had abused. I just felt utter embarrassment.”
She added later: “Over the years my coach really got in my head. I knew it was wrong but I didn’t know what to call it. I was only after reading the newspaper when I was 19 I understood that he groomed and abused me too.”
Charlie had cut off all contact with the girls from her running club in Sheffield, but decided to contact them after receiving an email from the mother of one of her friends, saying her daughter had also been abused by the coach.
“We were thick as thieves and would hang around at mainly her house and listen to Lauren Hill,” said Charlie. “I can’t believe we were both being abused and we didn’t know. Why didn’t we ever tell anyone? Why did I never tell anyone?”
The friend, who wished to remain anonymous, was raped in her own home after North came over for a ‘private session’.
Her mother said: “Why was he allowed to train on his own and take them for private sessions? I think that’s how it started for her, he started massaging her legs and it obviously got worse until he raped her.
“She’s never got over it, never, she’s not had a life for 20 years. He got a prison sentence but still came out and lived his life, my daughter has never had that. I will take it to my grave and my daughter will take it to her grave.”
Charlie also chatted to her mother about the abuse, admitting that after she initially revealed the trauma it was never spoken about again and ‘pushed away, like it never happened’.
Her mother admitted that their abusive stepfather made it difficult for the pair to speak properly about the issue, confessing: it was “difficult to spot because of everything that was going on in the home, it was very difficult to spot.”
