Swimming pool abuse victim’s warning for parents

Sex predators have lurked in public swimming pools for decades confident the water would conceal their dirty aquatic fiddling — a fact parents and Swimming Australia need to understand before children will be truly safe at pools, Annette Sharp writes.

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Sex predators have lurked near children in public swimming pools for decades confident the water would conceal their dirty aquatic fiddling — a fact parents and Swimming Australia need to understand before children will be truly safe at pools.

That’s the message from one Sydney woman who survived sexual abuse at the hands of a
male swimming coach in the 1980s and whose attacker was never charged and is still teaching children to swim.

Samantha Burns was sexually abused by her swimming coach in the 1980s.

In the past fortnight Sydney mums and dads have reeled in shock at news a 20-year-old Mosman swimming instructor stands accused of molesting little girls aged between six and 10 at a Sydney pool. The swim instructor — from one of Sydney’s most affluent suburbs — has denied the allegations and has indicated in court proceedings that he will defend the charges.

Samantha Burns, now 47, was 14 when her abuser started grooming her at a Sydney public swimming pool.

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She was then a junior swimming coach and her abuser was almost
30 years her senior when he started creeping up behind her to rub his groin on her back in unguarded moments while she was standing in the pool, started walking in on her while she was showering, began asking her to hold his penis and touching her breasts.

The abuse escalated over a period of 18 months until the man, who cannot be named, finally started asking her for sex — a request the young woman refused.

It would take the frightened and perplexed Burns 15 years to muster the courage to contact authorities at Swimming Australia (then called Australian Swimming) after spotting the man poolside at a coaching session on a TV news report.

Burns’s alleged abuser still works as a swimming coach — something that, decades on from her experience in 1987-88, causes her distress.

“He is still working with children — years after I notified Swimming Australia and later the police. There has been a file sitting on a desk somewhere at Swimming Australia for almost 20 years,” she said.

If her abuser was investigated, Burns believes it was a rudimentary inquiry: “(Swimming Australia) claimed they investigated my claims with their lawyers yet I was never involved or questioned at (that) time. (My abuser) claimed never to have met me.”

In 2014 Swimming Australia
said an investigation could not proceed because Burns refused to go ahead with it. Burns last week said she took her complaint to police in 2016. A police investigation is still pending.

Recent events prompted Burns to revisit her trauma last week.

Former Olympic swimming coach Scott Volkers was charged with five counts of indecent treatment of a child in the 1980s and is currently awaiting trial later this year. Picture: AAP Image/Glenn Hunt

Emboldened after testifying at the 2013 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse about her history of abuse, she hopes to warn parents of the dangers of failing to be vigilant with their children at swimming pools.

“Parents need to step up and be aware that grooming happens,” she said. “They should not leave their children alone at a pool.

“Swimming club isn’t a babysitting service. Swimming pools are dangerous places.”

Burns was one of 17 witnesses who gave evidence to the Royal Commission in 2013-14 about abuse within the Australian swimming community and specifically Swimming Australia’s handling of historic cases against Olympic swimming coach Terrence Buck and convicted Scone swimming coach Stephen Roser.

Another Olympic swim coach, Scott Volkers was charged in 2017 on five counts of indecent treatment of a child in the 1980s and is currently awaiting trial later this year, while Buck died in 2005 before a criminal case about allegations stretching back to 1960 could be pursued.

Following the royal commission Burns received an apology from Swimming Australia: “It said
‘I’m sorry this happened to you’ — but no one has ever pursued my abuser.”

Although he was sacked, and moved interstate, to her horror, Burns’s abuser might still be putting his hands on young bodies today.

Three decades on she remains single and admits she has struggled with relationships and battled PTSD for decades.

She is comforted, to an extent, by the widespread use of CCTV cameras today, something that didn’t exist when she was violated but may have played a role in the investigation into Mosman’s swim coach who now faces 30 child sex offence charges.

“I hope Swimming Australia has learnt over time about the extent of their responsibility to all children but I’m not convinced they have. There should be signage at pools warning parents to supervise their children at all times and I can’t stress enough the importance of never leaving your child alone in those places,” she said.

“My abuser would be older now but he was a repeat offender. He didn’t just do it to me. There was another girl who was 12 or 13 at the time and others as well. If he got away with it once, why would he stop?” she asks aloud before answering her own question. “He wouldn’t.”

Swimming Australia yesterday restated it has a “Safe Sport Framework in place and would encourage anyone with allegations to come forward and they will be thoroughly investigated”.

Regarding Burns’ complaint, a spokeswoman said: “We do not have access to records from 2002 and no one currently working at Swimming Australia was there then.”