The former football coach Barry Bennell was branded “sheer evil” and the “devil incarnate” on Monday after being sentenced to 30 years in prison for subjecting junior players from Manchester City and Crewe Alexandra to hundreds of sexual offences.
Bennell, now facing complaints from another 86 former players, stared at the floor as the judge, Clement Goldstone QC, gave him prison sentences totalling 454 years, to run concurrently.
There were cries of “yes” from the public gallery at Liverpool crown court as he was sentenced to serve the longest individual term of 30 years, with another year on licence. He will be eligible for parole after 15 years.
The judge told Bennell, 64, he had considered imprisoning him for life because of the “trail of psychological devastation” suffered by the victims and said the severity of the sentence was, in part, because the former coach and talent-spotter had shown no remorse for the 12 former players he had raped and molested over several years.
“In one of your [police] interviews you said that, while it might be fair to describe you as manipulative, cunning and even predatory, you were not evil,” Goldstone told him. “You could not have been more wrong. Your behaviour towards these boys in grooming and seducing them to, in some cases, the most serious, degrading and humiliating abuse was sheer evil.
“You knew that to each of these boys football was their life – the career for which they would give anything. And it was the career for which you would take anything and everything they had to offer. You appeared as a god who had it in his gift to help fulfil their ambitions and realise their dreams. In reality, you were the devil incarnate. You stole their childhoods and their innocence to satisfy your own perversion.”
Bennell, described by the prosecution as an “industrial-scale child molester” and a “predatory and determined paedophile”, made a point of not looking at his victims, now in their 40s and 50s, as they read out impact statements detailing how his crimes had affected their lives.
At one point, Gary Cliffe, a former Manchester City junior who was abused hundreds of times, including on the pitch at the club’s former Maine Road ground, approached the dock in an attempt to force Bennell into eye contact. “Why?” Cliffe asked before returning to his seat.
Otherwise, Bennell kept his head down or stared in front of him with his arms folded as the court was told that some victims had been left suicidal, others had turned to drink and drugs and many were still affected by depression, anxiety, panic attacks, flashbacks and nightmares.
David Hazeldine, whose brother Mark was coached by Bennell in City’s youth system and committed suicide in 2006, was among those in court. Andy Woodward, whose interview in the Guardian in November 2016 emboldened the other players to come forward, was also present and was thanked by the victims on the court steps.
Bennell had seven-year associations with both City and Crewe. He has served two prison sentences in England, as well as one in the US, and was found guilty last week of 50 offences relating to 12 junior players, aged eight to 14, between 1979 and 1990.
Once described as “the star-maker” because of his ability to find talented young players, he admitted seven charges and the jury found him guilty of the other 43 offences.
Wearing a blue sweatshirt with grey jogging bottoms, black Adidas trainers and a silver wristwatch, Bennell played with his hands and occasionally shook his head as his victims told the court that they were taking the power back from him.
“I did not want it, did not ask for it and did not enjoy it,” the youngest victim said. “I was a child, and between the ages of 10 to 13 that monster decided it was fun for him to use me as a sex toy.
“My dad finds it very difficult to think that he was taking me to play football and to become the footballer that I always wanted to be, when for three years he was actually taking me to hell.”
With Bennell jailed for at least 15 years, the judge said the Crown Prosecution Service would have to think carefully about pressing more charges now as the defendant “may well die in prison.”
Eleanor Laws, defending Bennell, said her client was in remission from cancer, having needed two operations to remove tumours, and was subject to an “onerous” regime that meant he had to be fed via a tube eight times a day. To audible disquiet from the public gallery, she said he was on anti-anxiety medication and had undertaken treatment programmes to deal with his paedophilia.
Addressing Bennell, Goldstone said: “Sadly, you did not learn the importance of remorse.”
Speaking outside court, Micky Fallon, one of Bennell’s victims, said that the sentence reflected the seriousness of the crimes and the distress Bennell had caused.
“Today we looked evil in the face and we smiled because Barry Bennell, we have won,” he said. “Today we hand our shame and our guilt and our sadness back to you. It should never have been ours to carry in the first place.”
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