TV PRESENTER Charlie Webster has revealed she was sexually assaulted as a
teenager.
The 31-year-old, who presents on Sky Sports and Sky Sports News, told BBC
Radio 5 Live the assaults were carried out by her running coach when she was
15.
Ms Webster waived her right to anonymity because she wants to “break the taboo
about abuse as a whole”.
She said: “I got quite close to the running coach because you do.
“You start to trust them when you’re a young kid, and he started to take me
for a few private sessions because he said I was good and I could do with
some extra sessions because that would really help.
“He took me into a private situation where no one else was. And then he abused
my trust, and he abused the fact that I was an innocent person who wanted
his support and his compassion and his care as my running coach.”
The man was later jailed for 10 years and put on the sex offenders register
for life.
Ms Webster said he had been a “male role model” to her, important for a young
child, but that he broke the trust of his position by taking it too far.
She said: “You should never touch a young girl anyway, but he very, very
manipulatively and very slowly sexually assaulted me.
“It doesn’t matter how many times, (but) it happened, it happened a couple of
times. You don’t realise – well, I didn’t realise it was happening, because
you trust that person and that trust is built up.”
Ms Webster said she did not tell anyone because she did not know then it was
something she could report.
She added: “I didn’t understand. I really lacked confidence. I didn’t know
what he was doing was wrong.
“Not one time in my head did I think I’m being sexually assaulted, because if
I did, I would have done something about it.”
She said that it had been another, younger girl who began to record the abuse
and took it to the police.
Ms Webster said that sexual abuse at the time was “one of these taboos, like
domestic abuse is now”, that wasn’t spoken about.
She said: “That’s why I’m here (on the radio) as well. It might help someone
else bring it to light. I want to break the taboo about abuse as a whole.”
Ms Webster is about to embark on a 250-mile, seven-day run to raise money and
awareness for Women’s Aid, a charity which works to end domestic abuse
against women and children.