• Bell says club got rid of George Ormond but could have done more • ‘They covered it up and finally it was me who went to the police’

The former Newcastle United footballer Derek Bell, who was subjected to years of sexual abuse by a boys club coach who subsequently worked at Newcastle, has accused the St James’ Park club of a cover-up for their limited response after Bell raised the alarm in 1998.

Bell was sexually abused by George Ormond, his coach at the local Montagu and North Fenham boys club, from the age of 12 to 16 in the late 1970s, until Bell signed as an apprentice at Newcastle United in 1979. He believes that after he joined Newcastle, Ormond had to “wean himself” off Bell, and he fears that Ormond must then have targeted other young players at the boys club for similar abuse.

Former Newcastle player on being abused: ‘It was horrific. He thought it was normal’ Read more

Almost 20 years later in 1998, Bell discovered that Ormond was working in the youth system at Newcastle and had been seen frequenting a hotel where young players stayed. Bell says he immediately told a youth-team coach that Ormond had sexually abused him as a boy and the club appear to have then informed Ormond he was no longer welcome to work at Newcastle. However, inquiries at the club today have not found that any further investigation was carried out, nor do the police appear to have been informed, and Ormond remained free until Bell himself went to the police and Ormond was finally arrested in January 2001.

Another former Newcastle player, David Eatock, has now said he, too, was abused by Ormond, at the hotel in 1995, thought to be at the beginning of an approximately three-year period during which Ormond was involved with young players at Newcastle.

“After I told Newcastle United about Ormond, they got him out of their club but the club hierarchy did nothing else,” Bell told the Guardian. “They had the information but they do not appear to have passed it on or held any inquiry. Instead they covered it up and finally it was me who went to the police.”

Newcastle, owned since 2007 by Mike Ashley, are still trying to establish precisely when Ormond became involved in the club’s youth system and the circumstances in which he left. The current managing director, Lee Charnley, has worked closely with Bell and supported him since he came forward to the club last week, and Newcastle have said they will assist any new police or other investigation.

It is believed so far that Ormond worked for approximately three years in an unpaid capacity, which according to Eatock, included driving boys around and having access to them at the hotel. When Bell informed the youth coach in 1998 that Ormond was an abuser, the youth coach is understood to have immediately told the club’s then secretary, who in turn is believed to have passed the information about Ormond further up the club’s hierarchy. The then director and co-owner of the club, Freddy Shepherd, told the Guardian that he does not remember being informed about Ormond, and that the then chief executive, Freddie Fletcher, who died in 2012, may have dealt with the Ormond issue.

The club hierarchy appear to have given an instruction that Ormond be told he was no longer wanted at Newcastle United, and he then ceased working there from October 1998, the club has established. However, there is no evidence that Newcastle United did anything further such as internally investigate Ormond’s activities at the club over three years’ involvement and the police do not appear to have been informed until Bell himself blew the whistle, separately, on Ormond, in 2000. Ormond appears to have remained free to be involved in coaching youth football during that period of longer than two years, until Northumbria police arrested him in January 2001.

In 2000, Bell went to Ormond’s house with a tape recorder to try to secure an incriminating confession, after seeing Ormond loitering behind a tree at a Newcastle city council hostel where vulnerable teenage refugees were being accommodated. He then worked with the police for 18 months to find other witnesses who could support a prosecution and finally, in November 2002, Ormond was sentenced to six years in prison after being found guilty of 12 indecent assaults.

Seven former Montagu and North Fenham boys club players gave evidence, including Bell, all claiming anonymity. Bell waived that anonymity this week, saying that he has wanted to speak publicly about the “horrendous, horrific” abuse for years, and not “live a lie,” and he talked to the Guardian about the abuse by Ormond and his life of trauma ever since.

At the time of the police investigation and trial, he felt that the Newcastle United hierarchy again wanted to minimise publicity and any impact on the club, and to “push it under the carpet”. There was little publicity even locally for the trial and conviction, and the club did not make a public statement afterwards saying they would welcome people who may have suffered abuse to come forward.

Bell says that he personally, a former player until his career was ended due to a knee injury in 1983, did not receive even a telephone call from the club hierarchy through the investigation and trial, which left him feeling “let down”.

Shepherd, a Newcastle director and major shareholder in the club throughout the 1990s and until he sold his shares to Ashley in 2007, said that he does not remember being told about Ormond in 1998, or during the trial in 2002. He said he has looked through his own records and not found anything about Ormond, who was never formally employed by Newcastle.

Police say 350 people have come forward to report child sex abuse in football Read more

“I don’t remember it being brought to my attention, and I don’t know what happened,” Shepherd said. “We are not the type of people to hold back; it would have been dealt with if I had been informed.”

Shepherd said he thought that Fletcher may have dealt with it himself and that he did not remember the case when it came to court.

Bell is also critical of Northumbria police, arguing that the prosecution was limited mostly to his experiences and limited supporting testimony mostly from people he contacted himself, and that the police did not thoroughly investigate the boys club, where Ormond had been a senior coach with access to young boys since at least the mid-1970s.

“There was no full investigation into the boys club,” Bell said. “The emphasis in the police investigation was on me trying to find other people who I knew had played for the boys club, who I suspected may have been abused as well, to see if they would give evidence.”

He recalls that the police did talk to the former chairman of Montagu and North Fenham boys club, Dick Almond, who is now dead, and that Almond had said he was not aware of any abuse. Bell believes no thorough investigation was then conducted into Ormond’s activities and the culture at the boys club over more than two decades.

Northumbria police has not yet responded to the Guardian’s questions about Bell’s criticisms of that investigation.

Newcastle United are now cooperating with the police on any new investigation into Ormond and historical sex abuse following a complaint they are understood to have received. A club spokeswoman said that on police advice, they consider it would now not be appropriate to respond publicly to questions about past handling of allegations.

On Thursday two former Southampton schoolboy players, Dean Radford and Jamie Webb, waived their right to anonymity to voice to the BBC allegations of grooming and sexual assault against a former club employee. The pair say they were in their teens when the incidents took place.

Webb said boys were asked to write the club employee love letters, and described an incident where “he tried to move down and put his hand in between my shorts and my tracksuit that I was wearing and I just blocked him”.

Radford described his experience as “the first I’d had of that sort of closeness and whatever else you want to call it”, adding that he was made to snuggle up to the employee with another youngster.

“The reasons he gave were that we needed to trust him, he needed to be like a second father to us – if we trusted him, and it worked both ways, then the chances were there that we could become a professional footballer.”

Radford added that he held the club “partly responsible” for the abuse. Southampton said they would cooperate fully with any police investigation.

• The NSPCC’s hotline is 0800 023 2642 and ChildLine for children and young people can be contacted on 0800 1111.

• The National Association for People Abused in Childhood can be contacted on 0808 801 0331.

• In the UK, Samaritans can be contacted on 116 123. In the US, the National Suicide Prevention Hotline is 1-800-273-8255. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is on 13 11 14.