Football's Darkest Secret

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Sport: Football

Three-part investigation into historical child abuse in English football.

Behind the goals, behind the glory - the child abuse football ignored. Their stories were overlooked for decades, until the survivors finally had their voices heard.

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Daniel Gordon

Hugh Davies

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Insight TWI

Football's Darkest Secret: Series 1: Missed Opportunities

Missed Opportunities

BBC One - Football's Darkest Secret, Series 1, Missed Opportunities

Why did it take so long for the full scale of abuse in youth football to emerge?

How opportunities were missed to stop sexual offenders in youth football decades ago, and why it took so long for the full scale of abuse to emerge.

Following on from the seismic revelations of historical child abuse in football in November 2016, this episode explores how opportunities were missed to stop offenders decades ago and why it took so long for the full scale of abuse to emerge. It follows the investigation into former Southampton youth coach Bob Higgins, filming alongside Hampshire Police detectives as they conduct interviews with Higgins and the survivors. A deeply disturbing pattern of psychological manipulation and sexual grooming begins to emerge.

Higgins was the subject of a police investigation in the early 1990s, but the subsequent trial resulted in acquittal. Barry Bennell was first convicted in Florida in 1995. He and Higgins were the subject of a Dispatches documentary back in 1997, for which Dean Radford and Ian Ackley bravely waived their anonymity in order to discuss what had happened to them then. And yet the response to the Dispatches programme was deafening silence. How was it that, after such public scrutiny, the true scale of the offending was able to remain hidden? 

Back in the present day, a new investigation into Higgins comes to a head. Dean hopes and prays that, 30 years on, history won’t repeat itself.

Football's Darkest Secret: Series 1

BBC One

Three-part series examining historic child abuse in youth football all across England between the 1970s and the 1990s, and the culture of silence that surrounded it.

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Football's Darkest Secret

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