• Bennell claimed £5 per boy to accommodate them • Crewe have said overnight stays were nothing to do with club

Here is the expenses claim from Barry Bennell that raises significant questions about the defence put forward by Crewe Alexandra’s lawyers to fight the high court claims lodged by victims of the paedophile coach.

It shows Bennell claimed £5 per boy to accommodate them at his house during the years when he used his position as Crewe’s youth-team coach to feed what prosecutors have described as his “almost insatiable appetite for young boys”.

Crewe claim they did not arrange for boys to stay with Barry Bennell Read more

The Guardian can reveal this expenses account is among the key evidence passed to the Football Association’s independent inquiry into the abuse scandal and shows Bennell informing the club that he had calculated, with school holidays factored in, he should receive an extra £30 a week on top of his usual salary, on the basis that “it is a rough guess but I accommodate 3/4 boys every weekend”.

That appears to contradict the defence Crewe have submitted to the high court to state that Bennell must have had “personal arrangements” with the parents, not the club, to allow boys to stay overnight. Crewe’s legal defence, fighting the first civil claims since Bennell was sentenced to 31 years in prison, argues that his crimes were “not committed in the course of his duties”. It goes on to state the club have “no record of making any payments to [Bennell] for having boys to stay with him”.

Bennell’s expenses, typed on Crewe-headed paper, requests that £1,560 is set aside out of the club’s annual budget to pay for his accommodation costs. A copy is in the possession of Clive Sheldon, the QC overseeing the FA’s inquiry, who has been told by one key witness that the paperwork would have gone towards a budget report, which would have been presented to the club’s board.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Barry Bennell’s expenses claim.

Crewe have declined to comment but might reasonably have been expected to know this document was in existence when, as well as being referenced in this newspaper, it was also highlighted on a Channel 4 documentary, Football’s Wall of Silence, shortly after Bennell was convicted last year of 50 specimen charges relating to boys, aged eight to 14, from the junior set-ups at Crewe Alexandra and Manchester City.

Crewe are denying liability and their legal defence in the high court argues that the writs should be thrown out because it would be “quite impossible” to have a fair trial relating to events from the 1980s and 1990s. The club’s case, according to their barrister Nicholas Fewtrell, is there is “no adequate explanation” why Bennell’s victims waited so long to report the sexual abuse they suffered.

In the same documents Crewe’s legal team also states categorically that in the case of one boy, who was abused from the age of 11 to 14, the club did not run an under-14s team at the relevant time. However, the Guardian has also seen a letter written by the organisers of the Northern Ireland Milk Cup to Malcolm Hughes, then Crewe’s educational welfare officer, in 2004, in response to a request for “the names of adults who accompanied teams from Crewe Alexandra” at its previous tournaments. Crewe are named as being represented by an under-14s’ side in every year bar one from 1985 to 1995.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest A letter written by the organisers of the Northern Ireland Milk Cup names Crewe as being represented by an under-14s’ side in every year bar one from 1985 to 1995.

The defence supplied by Crewe also appears to differ from what Dario Gradi, then the first-team manager, told a previous civil case in 2004 when the club successfully defended another claim for damages from one of Bennell’s victims.

On that occasion, Gradi’s written evidence said the club had encouraged a culture of boys staying overnight, or even going on holidays abroad with their coaches, and that it had remained a common practice for years after Bennell received the first of his four prison sentences. Crewe no longer operate this way, in line with modern safeguarding rules.

“The simple fact that Bennell had boys staying with him was not out of ordinary for this club,” Gradi stated in a nine-page document. “I had (and still have on occasions) boys staying with me and indeed all my coaches have boys staying with them from time to time. One has to appreciate the nature of this club. We do not have endless resources and our boys are often brought through the ranks and stay with the club out of personal loyalty.”

As one example, Gradi made the point that one of his former youth-team players – almost certainly Danny Murphy – had “stayed with Crewe for many years” despite other clubs trying to tempt him away. Murphy, who stayed with Gradi at weekends, joined Crewe on schoolboy terms and eventually moved to Liverpool, aged 20, for £1.5m.

“It has served us well over the years if myself and my coaches build up a rapport with players,” Gradi wrote. “I recently heard a story that one of my player’s mothers had been approached by the chief scout of a leading Premiership side, based in London, who stated that her son would be better looked after if he went [there]. The boy’s mother queried whether or not the manager would be cooking his tea on a Friday and Saturday night and personally bringing him home on a Sunday? When the answer was in the negative the mother thanked the scout for his interest but stated that her son would be staying with Crewe.”

Crewe are being represented by a law firm, Keoghs, that is regarded as a specialist in defending organisations from abuse cases and has previously been involved in one involving the Roman Catholic church. The firm was appointed by the Football League’s insurers, which is standard practice in these cases but not a process that involves the league itself.