Maddie Groves accusation: Swimming Australia to investigate case despite being told to step aside

Swimming Australia says it will investigate Maddie Groves’ bombshell complaints, despite experts saying an independent body should be leading the charge.

Swimming Australia says it will investigate Maddie Groves’ bombshell complaints about ‘perverts’ in her sport whether she agrees to co-operate or not.

Swimming Australia maintains it has still never heard from Groves – either formally or informally – but wants to hear about her concerns after she complained on social media that she had been subjected to body shaming and inappropriate behaviour from men involved with Swimming Australia.

The board of Swimming Australia met on Saturday to discuss her complaints, then announced it would establish an independent female panel to investigate ongoing issues related to women and girls in the sport.

Ariarne Titmus, Emma McKeon, Mikkayla Sheridan and Madeline Groves with their gold medals after the 4x200m Freestyle Relay at the Pan Pacific Swimming Championships in 2018.

“When we have any accusations of misbehaviour or inappropriate behaviour, we take that very seriously,” board director Tracy Stockwell said.

“In light of the fact that we don‘t have her coming forward, we need to look at our complaints processes as well to see if there is something or some reason why she’s not coming forward and get to the bottom of it.”

Chief executive Alex Baumann said Swimming Australia had tried to contact Groves in December last year, when she first raised issues about the way women were being treated in the sport, and again this week but to no avail.

He said Swimming Australia’s Ethics and Integrity Committee had a number of options to deal with serious complaints, including referring the matter to the National Integrity Framework, but had not decided yet which was the best path to go down.

“We want to be proactive,” he said.”

“It would be great if she could engage with us. Under the safe sport framework, we don‘t necessarily have to investigate it.

Swimming Australia CEO Alex Baumann says he has tried to reach out to Groves. Picture: Chris Hyde/Getty Images

“Obviously, it can go to our head of integrity, but it could be an independent person or it could be a tribunal as well. It’s really up to Maddie.

“We‘re investigating right now as to whether or not we should join up with the National Integrity Framework. But I think we really have to do our due diligence.

“We do believe that our safe sport framework and we’ve been doing this for about 10 years now is quite robust. But the question is, do we need more independence? And I think, you know, that’s what the National Integrity Framework does, but that work is going to be done in the next couple of months.”

Australia’s new national sporting watchdog and a leading sports lawyer have both advised Swimming Australia not to pressure Groves into coming forward.

Instead, there are now calls for Swimming Australia to step aside and allow for her complaints to be investigated by an independent body in the same way Gymnastics Australia asked the Australian Human Rights Commission to review that sport’s toxic culture.

Sport Integrity Australia chief executive David Sharpe.

“It is clear that sports should not be investigating themselves. Independence and transparency are critical when it comes to properly addressing complaints,” Sport Integrity Australia chief executive David Sharpe said.

“The review further highlighted that there is an obligation on sports to have proper and correct procedures in place to deal with complaints.”

One of the most chilling takeaways from the gymnastics review was that Australian sporting bodies can’t be trusted to investigate themselves when it comes to dealing with historical complaints and serious integrity issues – including child abuse, intimidation and bullying.

But sporting bodies have now been warned to raise their game after the federal government began a crackdown on sporting organisations accused of sweeping things under the carpet.

This includes signing up to the National Integrity Framework, which includes an allowance for individual athletes to make confidential complaints about sporting bodies, without fear of recrimination.

“Sport Integrity Australia is then able to assess the most appropriate course of action, including investigation or referral to police,” Sharpe said.

Victorian barrister and founder of Immediation, Laura Keily, said any process that relies on female athletes to lodge complaints to the same organisation they are complaining about was flawed and broken

“Whatever the current system is doing, it isn‘t working,” Keily said.

“There needs to be some safe, independent alternative that is more effective.

“The critical thing is that it‘s got to be independent of both the government and the organisation … because if it’s not independent then people don’t trust it.”

Sources have told News Corp there are dozens of other female swimmers with similar complaints to Groves, but they don’t feel safe talking to Swimming Australia.

However, it is understood a handful are prepared to go public in the coming days and weeks unless there is an independent review into all the complaints.

“It takes a lot of courage, particularly if they‘re going to do it publicly, which is why a private system is so much better,” Keily said.

“That’s why the court system doesn’t work, because it’s public but our experience is that if a complainant is going to come to the surface there’s generally a lot of relief associated with being able to have their story heard by somebody independent and then to be able to even be given a series of options or pathways.

“That is the very proactive thing to do and I suspect that there probably is a lot of unsurfaced stuff going on out there.”