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Former tennis star Angelique Cauchy has testified in detail about how she was sexually abused by her coach, Andrew Geddes, whilst growing up. In 2021, he was sentenced to 18 years in jail for raping and sexually assaulting four young females aged between 12 and 17.
In July, it was ruled that a commission of inquiry was being launched to identify the ‘shortcomings within sports federations, the sport movement and sports governance bodies’. Therefore, Cauchy testified to the Palais Bourbon last week to provide thorough details about her relationship with the Geddes after they began working together in 1999, when she was aged 12.
“It happened in not even two or three months,” Cauchy began. “I told him: ‘No, you shouldn’t, it’s not right, I don’t want to’ and he replied to me: ‘You know it happens sometimes in relationships between coach and student, we spend a lot of time together, it’s normal.”
The 36-year-old then explained that she was raped more than once a day when she travelled to a 15-day training camp in La Baule. Cauchy continued: “I lived the worst two weeks of my life. I thought many times about committing suicide.
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“He raped me three times a day. The first night he asked me to go to his room and I didn’t do it, then he came into mine.
“It was worse. I was in prison, I couldn’t get out when I wanted and afterwards, I had to stay in the place where it had happened. The evenings after, it seems crazy, but I went there on my own, and I took those thirteen steps that separated me from his room.”
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Cauchy then explained that she was blackmailed into thinking that she had contracted AIDS from the coach and that the tennis club president was aware of Geddes’ conduct but continued to work with him due to how he was a talented tennis coach.
She continued: “It was known in the tennis world that his behaviour with young girls was not correct. When a woman complained to the club president that he had behaved inappropriately towards young people with verbal and physical violence, the answer was ‘Yes, but he brings us titles’.
“I’m not talking about me because I didn’t know. But, for the others, there were always those who said ‘Yes, he’s with…, he’s dating…’. But at 38, you don’t go out with a girl of 15, let alone when you’re training her.”
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