Double Standards?

[Sicklee Sausage Roll 0]

A man exchanges a few messages in an adult chatroom - lengthy prison term.

 

A woman gets a job working with young girls, so she can pick one out and try to buy her way into their knickers - Loses job.

 

Sunday Sun

 

North swimming teacher is struck off

 

Oct 16 2005

 

By Eleanor Gregson, Sunday Sun

 

 

A respected swimming coach who left the North to further her career has been banned from working with children after being accused of inappropriate conduct with a 15-year-old girl.

 

Kirstie Ashworth, who moved to Birmingham from Newcastle four years ago as an assistant swimming development officer, has been permanently expelled from the Amateur Swimming Association, the ASA.

 

The governing body for swimming struck Miss Ashworth off their list of ASA-affiliated coaches after she formed an "unhealthy" relationship with one of her swimming students.

 

Miss Ashworth, 32, has also been included on a national list of those considered unfit to work with children, meaning that she can never coach swimming for children again.

 

She was initially suspended in April last year after the girl's father complained about the swimming coach to Birmingham City Council.

 

Miss Ashworth resigned shortly before a disciplinary hearing by the council.

 

Highly respected as a coach, Miss Ashworth was an assistant swimming development officer with Newcastle City Council's swimming development scheme for two years.

 

A spokesman for Newcastle City Council said: "Miss Ashworth left us in October 2000 to move to Birmingham to take up another position as a swimming instructor." She left to work with the council-funded City of Birmingham Swimming Club.

 

There, she trained hundreds of youngsters aged 11 and upwards in swimming.

 

Miss Ashworth was later promoted to chief coach for the swimming club, after training elite swimmers at a national and international level.

 

The girl's dad, who did not want to be named, claimed Miss Ashworth used to buy his daughter presents and even took her to a pub.

 

He said: "Kirstie was always buying my daughter things and giving her money.

 

"She would often phone her up and meet her outside of training. I also found out she had taken her to the pub on more than one occasion.

 

"I discovered that on her 16th birthday, she had handed my daughter a bag of condoms.

 

"I also found a blank cheque Kirstie had given her for driving lessons and she had cards in her bedroom signed `Love K'.

 

"It struck me as very strange that she'd want to befriend a teenager half her age. It seemed unhealthy.

 

"My daughter said it was because Kirstie had moved to Birmingham from up North and didn't have many friends".

 

The girl's father claims that he complained about the coach to the Birmingham City Council more than a year before her suspension - and that he also wrote to the ASA - but says that his concerns were ignored.

 

An ASA spokesman said: "Kirstie Ashworth has been permanently suspended from the Amateur Swimming Association.

 

"This is in relation to the fact she has been provisionally included on a child protection list of those not fit to work with children, under the Protection of Children Act 1999.

 

"In effect, she is no longer able to officially teach in swimming."

 

A Birmingham City Council spokeswoman said: "After Miss Ashworth resigned, concerns were raised with the relevant governing bodies, which in turn activated the appropriate procedures in determining whether she should work with children in future.

 

"The council continues to work with all the relevant child protection agencies and governing bodies and ensures its own procedures continue to be updated, along with those nationally."

 

The Sunday Sun was unable to contact Miss Ashworth for her comments.

Edited October 16, 2005 by Sicklee Sausage Roll

[Papa Lazaru 0]

The strange thing is they're implying the woman fancied the girl and wanted her, so what were the condoms for!!!

[luckyluke 2]

That had me puzzled too.