[TW] Sexual Abuse & Misconduct in Figure Skating

[aribou]

12 minutes ago, yuzuangel said:

It sounds like they held a hearing without asking for evidence? Why bother having such a hearing at all? Especially since the appropriate measures needed to get the evidence could currently be tied up due to corona or unavailable due to ongoing investigations in the US...

I don't get it either. There's plenty of evidence, and if they actually cared the commission could acquire it. This "No evidence was submitted directly to us" is a farce. They just don't care about justice for the victim. Gross negligence of duty, I hope they all face charges for this.

[SitTwizzle]

57 minutes ago, aribou said:

I don't get it either. There's plenty of evidence, and if they actually cared the commission could acquire it. This "No evidence was submitted directly to us" is a farce. They just don't care about justice for the victim. Gross negligence of duty, I hope they all face charges for this.

I agree.

Given the level of credibility of the accusation, either they searched actively evidence and found it and held a judgement, or they waited and explained they didn't have hard proof enough yet to expel him definitely and what steps were being taken. But that "we don't have proof" is just one more evidence that nothing have changed after Gailhaguet's departure, "his creatures" are still in power.

And Gilles Beyer! Because he didn't "just" send improper photos after being asked to by underage girls (and where is the enquiry about the victims' coach, who told them to ask for the pics?)

How his victims must be feeling now?

[Veveco]

Honestly, this sort of half-baked investigation does more harm because now people can use it to say "see, his name was cleared" when they clearly didn't try very hard to begin with. 

[EisElle]

13 hours ago, Veveco said:

Honestly, this sort of half-baked investigation does more harm because now people can use it to say "see, his name was cleared" when they clearly didn't try very hard to begin with. 

they didn't even try at all tbh, just did basic lip service amidst social outrage and then the pandemic came and stole the public focus. I still had hope that change could be real (or half real) this time, that the new leadership could act differently, but nope. In true FS & ISU fashion, things changed so they could stay the same.

I wonder if things would have gone in a different way, if government had taken a more radical step, shut down the fed and rebuild from zero as Peizerat wanted.

 

Now waiting to see how long it will take this time before DidierG is reinstated. Again.

(not that he is the supreme demon lord or something, he is obviously in good company in French Fed and inside ISU)

[SitTwizzle]

1 hour ago, LadyLou said:

they didn't even try at all tbh, just did basic lip service amidst social outrage and then the pandemic came and stole the public focus. I still had hope that change could be real (or half real) this time, that the new leadership could act differently, but nope. In true FS & ISU fashion, things changed so they could stay the same.

I wonder if things would have gone in a different way, if government had taken a more radical step, shut down the fed and rebuild from zero as Peizerat wanted.

 

Now waiting to see how long it will take this time before DidierG is reinstated. Again.

(not that he is the supreme demon lord or something, he is obviously in good company in French Fed and inside ISU)

I wish I could approve several times. Unfortunately. 

[sallycinnamon]

There was evidence, the pictures that were sent by Morgan, as it was written in articles before. So someone is not telling the truth here. Not that I am surprised though. 

[Sombreuil]

Plus ca change....... sadly.

[rockstaryuzu]

On 7/23/2020 at 4:50 PM, sallycinnamon said:

There was evidence, the pictures that were sent by Morgan, as it was written in articles before. So someone is not telling the truth here. Not that I am surprised though. 

Didn't the local police in Florida re-open their investigation also? So there must be some evidence, or they would not have done so.

[SitTwizzle]

1 hour ago, rockstaryuzu said:

Didn't the local police in Florida re-open their investigation also? So there must be some evidence, or they would not have done so.

What I hope, is that the Florida enquirers are trying to find out what there was behind this request by the victims' coach.

Diving deep in it may tell in particular (but maybe not only) if Morgan Ciprès has "just" been an obnoxious, irresponsible male and his coaches, particularly ill-judging ones unfit to train minors, or if they were involved in the grooming attempt which may, given what has been said to this date, have been the reason behind this request of asking Morgan Ciprès an improper photo.

Until they have found out (and even judged), French federation should in no way have done anything definitive, yet there was ground enough for some provisional measures (particularly relating to minors) given all that is clear and uncontested. Now I think they can do nothing more, even if it is later found out that he was part of a grooming system (which I hope not of course), because there have already been a sentence.

[SitTwizzle]

Not sure if a boycott is the right thing to do at the moment (plus, I see no mention of the victims' coach who was the initiator of the abuse in the "d... pics" case), but alerting ISU (I'd rather say : making them understand general public is aware) clearly is :

 

Meanwhile, Nathalie Péchalat, the new president of the French federation, claims she is acting but was prevented in these two cases by obsolete rules, and that in particular, Gilles Beyer (who "allegedly" raped many teenagers he was coaching since the 90s and was still coaching a few months ago in spite of decades of alerts to the federation and complaints etc) had failed to renew his licence by fear of sanctions and she pretends she could do nothing if he wasn't a member anymore :

https://www.huffingtonpost.fr/entry/federation-des-sports-de-glace-nathalie-pechalat-decouvre-des-cadavres-chaque-semaine_fr_5f207a9ac5b66859f1f323da

She seems to imply there are other cases of abuse, which wouldn't surprise me at all, given the impunity of the abusers during decades.

[Veveco]

I can translate later if people want more detail but in short GB was not punished by the fed because he doesn't currently have a licence (he likely didn't renew it to avoid sanctions).
No mention of MC whatsoever.
Lots of "we're working so hard to help the victims, but it's hard, but we're making progress" at the end. 

 

Not convincing at all. Basic PR work.

[rockstaryuzu]

22 hours ago, Veveco said:

I can translate later if people want more detail but in short GB was not punished by the fed because he doesn't currently have a licence (he likely didn't renew it to avoid sanctions).
No mention of MC whatsoever.
Lots of "we're working so hard to help the victims, but it's hard, but we're making progress" at the end. 

 

Not convincing at all. Basic PR work.

At the very least, sports federations have an obligation to not permit abuse to continue, once they've been notified of it. To my mind that means they have the responsibility to suspend the accused from working within the sanction of the federation until an investigation has taken place, to cooperate with any police investigation that might be taking place, to aid victims as needed,  to set and enforce clear and effective policies against abuse, to expel from their membership any individual proven to have committed abuse, and to ensure anyone joining the organization is not, to their knowledge, a known predator.

 

None of that oversteps the bounds of what a sports governing body should be able to do. Is Pechalat saying FFSG does not have this responsibility? Because it seems like she is. 

[SitTwizzle]

58 minutes ago, rockstaryuzu said:

At the very least, sports federations have an obligation to not permit abuse to continue, once they've been notified of it. To my mind that means they have the responsibility to suspend the accused from working within the sanction of the federation until an investigation has taken place, to cooperate with any police investigation that might be taking place, to aid victims as needed,  to set and enforce clear and effective policies against abuse, to expel from their membership any individual proven to have committed abuse, and to ensure anyone joining the organization is not, to their knowledge, a known predator.

 

None of that oversteps the bounds of what a sports governing body should be able to do. Is Pechalat saying FFSG does not have this responsibility? Because it seems like she is. 

I agree. I read no message saying that Gilles Beyer was barred from adhering again, and in case he would, from coaching again.

Implying they expect a formal complaint from the parents of the victims in the Ciprès case, while they are American living in the US, sounds purposely dismissive, unless they would have taken steps to contact them, explain them how sanctions work in the French federation, and affording them every facility to lodge such a complaint. If they had taken these steps, she would certainly have said it.

 

I think though, all the guilt may not come from her. I expected much from Roxana Maracineanu, French sports minister since 2018. In France a sports minister can do a lot. Proof of it in the Djamel Bouras case. He was a judoka, OGM, tested positive to steroids while he was trying to lose weight, not to gain, because he was on the verge of getting to a weight category where he was unlikely to win. He was clearly innocent (it was later found that steroids are stored in fat and released in urine when one try to lose weight : he had probably had steroids in his teenage, either knowingly or unknowingly, and had never lost weight since) and French fed was reluctant to inflict a severe sanction. The then sports minister, Marie-George Buffet, who was not from the president and the prime minister party, managed to completely overthrow the fed to get it dominated by people of her own party, dragged his name through the mud, and he could never recover, but she didn't mind. So, I would say, Roxana Maracineanu can impose a general cleaning of FFSG. And there is much more at stake than one athlete having maybe taken steroids. Why doesn't she? Is she preparing something? I hope so. She was maintained as a minister through the last changes. But I feel really impatient.

I hope this is not political. I am only aiming at informing of what can be done in France.

[Veveco]

 

[Sombreuil]

French coaching issue has made it into the Times.  Can’t seem to link it unfortunately , but it says the report will be passed to prosecutors and is likely to lead to criminal investigations.  It also quotes the report as denouncing the ‘ concentration of power’ among ‘very few’ FFIS executives who allowed abuse and violence to develop and whose ‘way of functioning could only .......favour a culture of secrecy .....(which) led to the absence of disciplinary action’.