DAVID ISAACSON | Turning a blind eye to sexual abuse makes you as guilty as the predator

A bomb is detonating in SA sport, and if it explodes to full potential, many federations are going to be ripped to shreds.

The scourge of sexual abuse was raised at the weekend, with two swimming coaches being accused, as were two administrators for allegedly trying to cover up the one case.

I can’t comment on the merits of these cases, which are being investigated by police and disciplinary tribunals set up by Swimming SA, but sexual abuse of underage athletes across many sports in this country must be more common than we dare to imagine.

There are 76 governing bodies for sport in SA, from gymnastics and athletics to boxing and karate.

Look how long it took to nail disgraced tennis hero Bob Hewitt, who won 15 grand slam titles and was part of SA’s historic Davis Cup triumph in 1974.

One only needs to watch Athlete A, the documentary about the victims of American gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, to see just how difficult it can be to nail these predators.

A major problem are the sports officials who, for reasons only they understand, protect them.

It’s always a child vs monsters.

The criminals are not just the abusers. So, too, are the protectors who turn a blind eye to the complaints. During Hewitt’s trial his wife, Delaille, lied on the stand, presumably to try to protect her husband.

She insisted the one accuser’s claims couldn’t possibly be true because the incident had occurred on the tennis court at their house and she had a view of it for all the lessons that took place there.

Delaille Hewitt was specific about this because she used to sit at the nearby pool to supervise her daughter who was a water baby and always wanted to swim.

The only problem was that at the time the abuse took place, in the early 1990s, her “water baby” would have been at least 18 and presumably not in need of constant adult supervision.

Not long after Hewitt had been convicted, I happened to be chatting to an old colleague who had covered tennis in the 1980s. He recalled that after a tennis press conference one day, somewhere in the middle of that decade, Hewitt had complained to journalists about how he hadn’t been selected to coach one of the national teams.

He insisted he was the best qualified for the job. In the middle of his tirade an administrator interrupted him: “It’s not about the skills, Bob, it’s about the young girls!”

Hewitt, a fiery character notorious for taking on umpires in matches, offered no comeback. He simply turned around and walked out the room.

My colleague realised then that the rumours he had already heard were true.

Yet it took a further 30 years before Hewitt was convicted in 2015.

That is simply unacceptable.

Three accusers took him to court. One had the support of her parents, but a charge they laid straight after she was raped around 1980 ended up being swept under the carpet.

One wasn’t believed by her parents.

And if you think about the process a youngster must go through to report abuse, it’s daunting, to say the least. First they must confide in their parents, then the police, hopefully a psychologist and so the process goes on until the matter gets to court.

To fight scepticism at any of those stages must be soul-destroying. I’ve spoken to a couple of people who have been victims of abuse and then dismissed, and it’s heartbreaking.

Yet too many people have found it more convenient to close their eyes to the truth than to do what is right.

But if the accusations against the two swimming coaches can spur more victims to come forward and repeat their allegations, there are going to be many unwilling eyelids getting torn open.

Ordinarily one might say it’s about time. But not in these circumstances — it’s long overdue.