Gymnastics coach Brett Anthony Wood accused of using measuring tap in alleged indecent assault
A gymnastics coach from the Gold Coast will face court in Sydney next week charged with using a measuring tape to indecently assault three of his male students.
A gymnastics coach from the Gold Coast will face a Sydney court next week charged with using a measuring tape to indecently assault three of his male students.
Brett Anthony Wood, 50, has been charged by NSW Police sex crimes squad officers with eight counts of aggravated indecent assault over offences allegedly committed in early and mid 2000s while he was working as a gymnastics coach on Sydney’s northern beaches.
Court documents allege he used a “floppy tailor’s measuring tape” to take measurements of the three boys while touching their penises and genitals “in a sexualised manner”.
The offences allegedly took place between 2002 and 2005, according to documents before Tweed Heads Local Court where Wood appeared earlier this month after his arrest.
He was bailed to appear in Manly Local Court next Wednesday, with conditions including surrendering his passport, residing at a Southport address and complying with any restrictions imposed by Blue Card Queensland.
He was also ordered to have no contact with the alleged victims.
Wood ran the Skyline Gymnastics Academy at Southport, a business which records revealed had its ABN cancelled on October 13 after Wood was charged.
He is the second Gold Coast gymnastics coach charged with child sex offences in NSW in recent months in unrelated incidents, after Wei Jun Lee, 32, faced Blacktown Local Court in August charged with sexually touching a child in April this year.
The Skybound Gymnastics Club at Burleigh Heads where Lee coached was closed down.
Wood has been coaching in Queensland for a number of years.
The operator of one gymnastics school where he worked said Wood had left the facility earlier this year after a commercial dispute, and was shocked to hear of the charges.
In 2022, Wood launched a petition which was signed by more than 4000 people to close the Queensland gymnastics high performance centre at Chandler following funding cuts.
Wood, “a member of the gymnastics community for over 25 years”, said the mooted closure had come as “a complete shock” to gymnasts from juniors to Olympians.
“Not only will the athletes need to find a new place to train, the coaches will as well,” he wrote on the change.org petition.
“They have an amazing team of coaches that are great at their job and are equally as devastated as the athletes.
“These athletes trained hard during the unknown of Covid, many were crowned national champions in 2021, and now their dreams are shattered.
“To think QLD (is) the host state of the 2032 Olympics, not having a state training centre for its top athletes. They deserve better.”
Originally published as Gymnastics coach Brett Anthony Wood accused of using measuring tap in alleged indecent assault
