Geoffrey Broome: Youth football coach jailed for abusing players

Geoffrey Broome worked with numerous clubs in North and North East Lincolnshire

A former youth football coach who abused players in his care had previously received a caution for spanking an 11-year-old boy, a court heard.

Geoffrey Broome was cautioned in 1987 but continued to coach and indecently assaulted three boys in the 1990s.

Broome, 62, from Grimsby, was sentenced to four years in prison at Doncaster Crown Court for the attacks.

Judge Graham Reeds QC said there were "serious questions" to be asked.

Jailing Broome on Monday, the judge wanted to know why he had been able to continue to work with young people despite his earlier caution.

"The answer may lie in the comparative laxity of the child protection rules then, to how well they appear to be enforced today," the judge added.

During the week-long trial, the jury was told Broome, who worked with Grimsby Town and Scunthorpe United as well as amateur sides in North and North East Lincolnshire, caned, spanked and massaged the child players.

Victims 'felt trapped'

Jurors heard how one boy was ordered to strip naked before being massaged with oils at Broome's home. On another occasion, the defendant caned the victim numerous times "causing no visible injuries".

Prosecutor Nick Adlington said the boy was told not to tell anyone and he had "felt scared and intimidated and wanted the incidents to stop".

Another victim described how Broome would take him from training "down a secluded lane and spank him there".

Addressing Broome, the judge said: "All of your victims felt trapped by you because they wanted to play football at a high level and they felt, for family or other reasons, that they could not do anything about what you had done until they were men themselves."

He told the former coach he was "not of good character" and "must face the reckoning for what you did".

"The fact that you have no actual convictions is something that has allowed you to keep your place as a youth football coach and to keep that veneer of respectability which made you believe no-one would ever accuse you for what you did," he said.

Broome, of Farebrother Street, Grimsby, who must sign the sex offenders register for life, denied eight counts of indecent assault.