Paul Hickson

Paul Anthony Hickson (10 May 1947 – 27 December 2008) was a serial rapist and a British former swimming coach, originally from Leicestershire. He coached the British Olympic swimming team at two Olympics in the 1980s, but behind his sporting prowess, he had been a determined and devious serial rapist of teenage female swimmers, who had misplaced their trust in him.

Early life
He grew up on Norwich Road in Leicester, the son of Arthur Walter Hickson (29 August 1914 - 2000) and Iris Mary Wilby (19 October 1920 - 9 February 2009), who had married in 1940. His grandparents were John Henry (26 April 1888 - 1978) and Elizabeth Hickson (20 June 1886 - 1949).

At grammar school (since 1976 the comprehensive City of Leicester College) he swam for Abbey house; other houses were Bradgate, Charnwood and De Montfort. The school had its swimming gala at Spence Street Baths (Spence Street Sports Centre since 1982), where the Leicester Schools' Swimming Association had its gala. He gained two A-levels. He swam for Knighton Fields swimming club in the 1960s, and also took part in diving competitions. He later swam with Leicester Swimming Club at Vestry Street Baths (closed around 1973, demolished, now Curve theatre).

He trained as a physical education teacher at Borough Road College, a teacher training college, in Isleworth (Osterley), around 1967. This college became West London Institute of Higher Education in 1976 when it merged with Maria Grey Training College, and part of Brunel University London in 1997.

Norwich
He taught for a few years at a Norwich comprehensive school, becoming the head of football for Norwich schools. He set up his own swimming club, as he did not think that the local swimming clubs had the sufficient standard that he was looking for. At Norfolk he coached David Stacey. He worked with the England youth swimming team from 1978. He became head of the England youth swimming team in April 1981, aged 33. He would take over at the City of Coventry swimming club in mid-September 1981.

Coventry
He moved from a Norwich swimming club to a West Midlands swimming club in September 1981. At Coventry was Annabelle Cripps (her father was a swimmer, and she attended the King Henry VIII School, Coventry), Bettina Doyle, Paul Howe, Gareth Sykes and David Stacey. His Coventry team came second in national competitions against teams such as Barnet Copthall of north London, Nova Centurion of Nottingham, Wigan Wasps and Beckenham. He was selected as a coach for the 1982 Commonwealth Games in Brisbane.

He went as a coach to the 1982 World Aquatics Championships in Guayaquil in Ecuador at the end of July 1982, where he complained about the team's accommodation; the hotel had been booked, as defined within a set financial budget, and no-one from the ASA or the GBSF had visited the chosen hotel. The city was crime-ridden, and the British Embassy warned the team, that food in the hotel was not safe, with all the swimmers subsequently acquiring diarrhea. The Americans and Canadians had, conversely, stayed in a five-star hotel. Although there was a direct British Caledonian flight, each Thursday, from Gatwick Airport, to the city, via San Juan, Puerto Rico, the team took 27 hours to reach the city via flights to Amsterdam, Zurich and Lisbon, then to Caracas, and the last leg was via the island of Curaçao in the Lesser Antilles.

In mid-January 1983, he was given three months notice by the swimming club's chairman Graham Sykes, after unpaid bills were discovered in November 1982, and the club's finances were heading southwards. He left Coventry on Tuesday 12 April 1983, and would join Swansea on 1 June 1983.

University College Swansea
In 1983, he moved to University College Swansea, where he trained Duncan Rolley (brother of Andy Rolley) and Helen Walsh.

On Wednesday 22 January 1986, he was appointed to be the England team coach, which was not paid, with only expenses. He was the head coach for the 1986 World Aquatics Championships in August 1986 in Spain, and the 1986 Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh. He had a dispute about the opening hours of the Royal Commonwealth Pool in Edinburgh, which did not open until 8am. With the Australian team manager, he complained to the City of Edinburgh District Council.

He coached the British swimming team at the 1984 Summer Olympics. He developed the early career of Kathy Read, and Karen Mellor (swimmer).

He took the British team to the U.S. Open (swimming) from December 5–7, 1986 in Florida.

He was the head swimming coach for the 1988 Summer Olympics, and team manager for the July 1987 World Student Games in Zagreb, Yugoslavia, featuring Elaine Gilfillan of the Dunfermline College of Physical Education and Neil Cochran of the University of Aberdeen, and Arizona State University. The team won three medals at the 1988 Summer Olympics; British Olympic head swimming coaches were appointed by the Amateur Swimming Federation of Great Britain.

He was chosen to be the team manager for the 1989 Summer Universiade, which was to be in Brazil, but was held in West Germany, without any swimming. Only athletics, fencing, men's basketball and rowing at the 1989 Games. On Thursday 16 November 1989, he wrote to The Times, discussing the Commonwealth Games Council for Wales, giving an address in Uplands, Swansea.

In June 1991, he picked a team of 30 swimmers for the July 1991 World Student Games, with 19 males and 11 females; 11 of these were studying at American universities, with Richard Leishman of the University of South Carolina and Sean McQuaid of Loughborough University, both from Scotland.

Somerset
Whilst studying for an M.Sc. course at University College Swansea, he became the swimming coach at an independent school in Somerset in September 1991.

He was the England team coach for the July 1992 European Schools Swimming Championships in Caen in northern France.

Norwich
He had carried out sexual assaults and rape on teenage girls from, at least, 30 September 1976, when in Norwich.

Swansea
In 1986, the ASA had been told by a male swimmer, that Hickson had given female swimmers unwelcome attention. But as the women were over the age of 16, the ASA saw nothing that obviously illegal.

When assistant director of physical education at University College Swansea, in 1987, he had made a female student strip naked in a fitness test. The female student had complained to the university, but Hickson received only a written warning from the director of physical education, Stan Addicott, around the end of 1987. Notably, the female who complained was not a swimmer, but had required a fitness test for her interest in rock climbing; on the first fitness test, the procedure followed was nothing whatsoever out of the ordinary, but it was on the subsequent second fitness test that Hickson asked the female student to strip naked; the female student complied, but was not that unexpectedly alarmed until when Hickson stripped as well, and tried to kiss the female student; at the September 1995 trial, the jury did not find Hickson guilty on this assault.

Female students were advised not to be alone with him in fitness tests. It transpired that six other female students had been stripped naked by him, during such fitness tests. The university did not alert the British Olympic Association or the Amateur Swimming Federation (headquartered in Loughborough) about his conduct. The university had viewed the incident as a 'one off', as no other incidents had been reported. When applying for his next position as a swimming coach, the university had also given him an excellent reference.

Somerset
Detective Sergeant Roger Went, a policeman, heard a female talk about him on 21 July 1992; he was a former teacher, from Kenfig Hill, who joined the police in 1980, aged 28. 16 year old Emma-Jane Needle, of Porthcawl, mentioned that Hickson had tried to molest her, when accidentally overheard by Roger Went.

On Saturday 12 September 1992 he was suspended from his position as coach at the Millfield independent school, after allegations of serious sexual assaults, against teenage girls, between 1984 and 1991, when working as a coach at University College Swansea, which South Wales Police investigated. Detective Inspector Bryan Jenkins of South Wales Police led the investigation. In September 1992, four female witnesses were firstly interviewed by Detective Sergeant Tony Thomas of the Family Support Unit, in Skewen.

He was given eight charges of indecent assault, and one charge of rape, at Cockett police station on Tuesday 3 November 1992, and appeared at a Swansea court on Tuesday 8 December 1992. Five of the eight females claiming assault, had been under 16.

France
In September 1993, he absconded from appearing at Swansea Court, in relation to indecent assaults on eight teenage girls.

Arrest
Fifteen minutes into Crimewatch on Thursday 17 February 1994 at 9.30pm, he was featured as the first of four people in the Photocall segment, described by Superintendent David Hatcher as being 5 ft 9in; the programme itself was fronted by Sue Cook. Four previous swimmers (from Norwich in 1976–81) had also contacted through Crimewatch, with two reporting rape (from 1976 to 1977). Had he not absconded, and his picture appeared on Crimewatch, the rapes would probably have not been reported?

On Friday 23 December 1994 he was followed by police from arriving in Kent, and found at Center Parcs holiday village, Sherwood Forest, next to the A614 in Rufford, Nottinghamshire, having returned from Roubaix in northern France, and re-arrested.

Hickson had travelled the whole world, with the British team, and Swansea police had well-founded beliefs that he could end up in a place like Australia or the US, requiring extradition, provided that he had been discovered. His solicitor was David Hutchinson. His wife offered £25,000 for bail, but any bail was refused. On Tuesday 31 January 1995, at a Swansea court, he was given another charge of rape. He was held in HM Prison Swansea.

Court
He eventually appeared at Cardiff Crown Court on Tuesday 5 September 1995, where he was accused of carrying out systematic indecent assault and rape over fifteen years. He was prosecuted by Sir Wyn Williams. He was defended by Sir Anthony Evans. Nine females gave evidence, against him, in court. In court, to plausibly explain the naked examination of female undergraduate swimmers, he said that a female had voluntarily dropped her shorts and underclothes, adding that he was 'very embarrassed and nonplussed by the entire situation. I left the room, telling her to get dressed, and that I would come back in a moment'.

John Prosser gave him 12 years for two rapes, and five years for the indecent assaults.

Conviction
On Wednesday 27 September 1995, he was convicted of fifteen of the seventeen charges, including two of rape, by a jury of eight men and four women. He was cleared of two charges of indecent assault against a former Commonwealth Games swimmer and a twenty-year-old Swansea University student. Hickson was sentenced to 17 years imprisonment following the three-week trial. Following his conviction, the chief executive of the Amateur Swimming Federation of Great Britain expressed that the body were "extremely concerned" that one of their coaches could be guilty of such offences and assured parents that vetting and supervision procedures would be reviewed and tightened. At conviction, David Sparkes was the chief executive of the Amateur Swimming Association of Great Britain, later the head of British Swimming. A mother of a female swimmer said 'Hickson, at the time, had an almost god-like image in the sport. He also had the gift of the gab, and was very manipulative'.

On 28 September 1995 a large picture of him appeared on the front page of The Times; the editorial, inside the newspaper, mentioned the National Coaching Foundation and the National Association of Sports Coaches, and that, unlike school teachers, children's sports coaches did not require a criminal record check (and would be neither later covered by the Sexual Offences Act 2003). If the events of Paul Hickson were shocking, the editorial went further, mentioning the unsavoury practice of East Germany to, allegedly, make sportswomen pregnant, and then terminate the pregnancy, to boost their red blood cell count, and their hormones.

The sentence was reduced from 17 to 15 yrs in February 1997, on an appeal, by Joyanne Bracewell.

On Wednesday 18 March 1998 at 10.10pm on BBC1, the fifty-minute Dreams of Gold was shown as part of Crimewatch File, narrated by Jill Dando. The case was featured on File on 4 on Tuesday 10 July 2012 on BBC Radio 4. The reconstruction plays the song You're Not Alone, in an airport check-in scene, but that song was not released until 1997.

It was featured on Tuesday 24 May 2016 on Radio 5 Live, including the Spanish gymnast Gloria Viseras, who appeared at the 1980 Summer Olympics.

In October 2002, he attempted to acquire early parole, but it was rejected by Sir Roderick Evans, who noted that the parole board did not accept he had sufficiently changed his lifestyle to prevent him reoffending. Evans further expressed that Hickson had to demonstrate that the likelihood of him reoffending again was reduced, suggesting that this could not be demonstrated solely by the passage of time.

Personal life
He suffered from asthma.

He had married when 21, and had a daughter. He lived on Luddon Lane in Baltonsborough in the early 1990s.