Lewis Saxby: Former football manager used sexual images to control women

Lewis Saxby, of Lymington Road in Mansfield, resigned as a football manager in 2020

A former football manager who coercively controlled his teenage girlfriend and defrauded a woman out of almost £90,000 has been jailed.

Lewis Saxby, 32, was described by a judge as being a "predator as far as vulnerable women were concerned".

One of his methods of control was threatening to share sexually explicit images and video footage of the women, including secretly recorded footage.

Saxby had previously managed clubs including Mansfield Town Ladies.

He was given jail sentences totalling five and a half years at Nottingham Crown Court.

This was after he pleaded guilty to coercive control, blackmail and fraud, for offences against four women in total.

'Tear away dignity'

Sentencing Saxby, Judge Stuart Rafferty QC told him: "Your offending is fairly described as despicable.

"You showed yourself to be self-centred, selfish, manipulative, prone to making unreasonable demands in an aggressive way, and threatening people with the thing they feared most.

"When you say to a woman 'I will publish photographs of you in sexually compromising positions if you do not do what I want you to do' you are threatening to tear away the dignity that each of these women had."

Saxby was manager of Rainworth Miners Welfare FC until June 2020 when he resigned, saying he wanted to spend more time with his family and "sort out some of my personal issues".

Lewis Saxby controlled the women by threatening to share sexual images and video footage of them

The court heard one of his victims was only 16 when they began a relationship, and he was 10 years older than her.

He pleaded guilty to coercively controlling her over a period of 15 months.

The court heard his methods of control included taking her phone and not giving it back until she did what he said, going through her phone and checking her texts and social media, and bombarding her with text messages.

The judge said she was "but a child when you, for two years, effectively ran her life and made her life a misery".

The court heard she agreed to send him a sexual image of herself, and he threatened to share this online, saying: "It's time for people to know what you are like."

He also made her give him money to pay his phone bill and car insurance, even though she was still doing her A-levels and only had a part-time job.

In a statement read to the court, the woman said: "Saxby made me feel so low I have considered ending my life several times."

Saxby was jailed by a judge at Nottingham Crown Court

The woman he defrauded out of £90,000 had been a friend from childhood, and she eventually had to sell her home because he left her in so much debt.

He initially asked her for money by saying he had lost his job at Sports Direct, and claimed he needed to fund legal proceedings.

In a statement, which she read to the court herself, she said Saxby "took advantage of my caring nature".

He gradually asked for more and more money, told her she had been named in the paperwork for the litigation, and said bailiffs would come round if she did not pay.

The woman, who worked as a teacher, took out payday loans and credit cards in order to raise the money, and also gave him £20,000 she had inherited.

The court heard they engaged in sexual activity on one occasion when she went to ask for her money back, and he secretly recorded her with his mobile phone.

He later threatened to send this footage to her family and friends unless she kept giving him money.

She told the court she had been forced to move back in with her parents, and had periods of feeling suicidal.

"I could not hate Saxby more if I tried," she said.

'You have 15 minutes'

A third victim was a woman he had been in a brief relationship with. He also threatened to share sexual images of her, which she believed may have been taken without her consent.

She initially gave him £400 but refused to give him a further £2,000.

When she refused, he texted saying: "I'm going to post the pic of your [sexually explicit] on Insta. You have 15 minutes. I have 10 pics. This can be resolved easily."

A fourth victim was another woman he had a brief relationship with, who lent him £300.

She asked for the money back after the relationship ended, and he responded by saying she could have the money if she agreed to have sex with him.

She refused to do so, but she stopped asking for the money when he threatened to share sexual images of her.

Simon Eckersley, defending, said Saxby had problems with gambling which caused him to offend in order to get money, and he had "expressed remorse for his behaviour".

Det Con Mary Jones, who led the investigation, said: "I am delighted on behalf of all his victims that Saxby has finally been exposed for what he truly is - a devious and dishonest conman who sought to exploit and humiliate a series of wholly innocent women in one of the most appalling ways imaginable."