It saddens us and disgusts us to hear about this but please read as this is but one reason we take our safeguarding so seriously.
Just to iterate that at least 3 of our staff are safeguard lead trained and all DBS verified and are available to be seen anytime upon request.
“Three weeks ago, I notified a local judo club that they had a predator following their page. They have blatantly ignored my repeated requests for them to check their social media pages and to delete said predator. (He’s been speaking to a 14-year-old sexually) So I escalated my concerns to our area secretary within the AJA, again my email and my safeguarding concerns were completely ignored! I had no response from them. on the 22nd of this month I spoke with the BJA safeguarding officer Marina, she totally agrees with my concerns and acted swiftly in trying to contact the judo club, she has had many messages back from them with them, assuring her that they have deleted and blocked said predator. I’ve just checked their social media page and he is still there three weeks on. I won’t name the club, but the owner is the safeguarding lead for the AJA he seems to be unaware of safeguarding protocols and / or is unable or unwilling to safeguard his own club . Kids safety comes first always!!”
This is wrong on SO many levels, not to mention a huge breach of Safeguarding protocol. Disgusting behaviour on the part of the clubs head coach who should be nowhere near a Safeguarding position (And self admits he is appointed Safeguarding officer for the AJA) - Also how the AJA can appoint someone in such a high position of care, and not do any kind of research on what qualifications it takes to be a safeguard lead. How can a Safeguarding officer FAIL to SAFEGUARD and not acknowledge the failures brought on by the sheer ignorance of the situation.
At the end of the day, if you don't know how to remove someone, then appoint someone that does. This deserves to be investigated and most of all, Parents deserve to know what kind of club this is and who exactly is teaching their children.
**UPDATE**
The Club has now closed down their public group page, but the dangers could already have happened - correct procedure would have been to contact everyone on their follow/like list and warn them that there was a sexual predator following the page, just to make them aware. The damage is already done however and the response was "There's nobody from our club that follows our page" - mighty big statement from a supposed Safeguarding lead! What about other potential Children that might have followed the page? The whole situation is disgraceful and the way it has been handled, even more so.
All of our social media is fully vetted and checked on a frequent basis to stop this from happening and keeping our members and their children safe.
