Former Olympic diver jailed for abusing schoolgirls
A FORMER Olympic diving star was today jailed for nine years after he sexually abused schoolgirls as young as six.
Brian Phelps, formerly of the Ashbrooke area of Sunderland, took the bronze medal in the 1960 Rome Olympics when he was aged 16 and then gold in the 1962 and 1966 Commonwealth Games.
The 64-year-old went on to work as a gymnastics and trampoline instructor at a club in Poole, Dorset, which he founded with his wife, Monica.
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But, Bournemouth Crown Court heard he abused three girls, aged six to 15, while giving them one-to-one tuition at the club over eight years in the 70s and 80s.
The attacks came to light last year after one victim complained to police and two other girls then came forward.
Phelps, who retired to live in Le Val Besnot, France, pleaded guilty to 42 counts of indecent assault and gross indecency against the girls.
Judge Samuel Wiggs jailed him for nine years and said: "What you did to those three young girls from the age as young as six is almost as terrible and horrible sexually as one can imagine short of rape and full sexual intercourse.
"You subjected them all to detailed and degrading sexual conduct and I have read the statements of all three of them as to the effect which that has had on them through the many years of their lives since these offences were committed over approximately eight years in the 1970s and 80s."
He told him he would serve two-thirds of the sentence before being considered for release and placed him on the Sex Offenders Register for life.
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