Dario Gradi’s long career could be ending in disgrace after an independent inquiry into football’s sexual-abuse scandal concluded that he had information that might have stopped one serial offender who is now feared to have preyed on more than 25 victims.
According to the findings of a two-and-a-half-year investigation, Gradi failed to report Eddie Heath when they worked together at Chelsea in the early 1970s despite receiving a complaint that his colleague had indecently assaulted one boy in the showers.
Instead Gradi visited the boy’s parents, as Chelsea’s assistant manager, and admits in his own evidence that he did not want the matter to go any further. “I’d got no intention of getting Eddie Heath into trouble,” he says.
Heath, the club’s chief scout, went on to abuse boys for many years, with 23 complaints from boys within Chelsea’s youth system, one from a school team and another relating to when he was working for Millwall.
Gradi, currently suspended by the Football Association and also facing significant questions about the Barry Bennell scandal at Crewe Alexandra, has subsequently been accused by Charles Geekie, the QC who was appointed by Chelsea to oversee the inquiry, of giving “somewhat unlikely and unconvincing” evidence.
“Mr Gradi is the single example of a clear account of an adult in a position of responsibility being informed about an allegation in relation to Mr Heath,” Geekie’s 252-page report states. “The complaint … was not referred to more senior members of the club and an opportunity to prevent Mr Heath from going on to abuse others was lost.
“The very purpose of this review is to shine a light on matters such as this. The events involving Mr Gradi are central to the purpose of this review. There is, I consider, a significant public interest in matters such as this being brought fully and openly into view. I consider it absolutely necessary . . . to name Mr Gradi.”
Today it can also be revealed:
• Chelsea’s inquiries have revealed complaints of non-recent sexual abuse relating to three other employees – one a driver, two scouts – at Stamford Bridge.
• Eddie Heath had a close friendship with another paedophile, John Butcher, and they worked together as scouts for Chelsea.
• Sir Geoff Hurst, one of England’s heroes from the 1966 World Cup, refused to co-operate with the inquiry, despite having been manager of Chelsea when Heath was sacked in 1979.
• Chelsea have found “substantial evidence” in a separate inquiry that Gwyn Williams, formerly their academy director, subjected young black players to racist remarks “on a routine basis”.
Gradi, awarded an OBE in 1998 for his services to football, has always denied any wrongdoing since the Guardian’s investigation into sexual abuse in football began what the Football Association chairman, Greg Clarke, has described as the biggest crisis in the history of the sport.
However, it is difficult to see any way that Gradi, 78, can return to the sport now it has been established Crewe’s director of football, still on full pay after being suspended by the FA in December 2016, had been told about a colleague at Chelsea committing a sex act on one boy and decided, according to Geekie’s report, not to do report it.
In his evidence, Gradi was asked to clarify what the complaint was. “I don’t remember the detail but … he [Heath] didn’t rape him or anything. He was sexually, I don’t know, touching him, I suppose. I don’t remember. I don’t remember being horrified by it, thinking it was awful, but sorry.” He could recall telling the boy to “keep away” from Heath and that his colleague had been accused of “touching him where he shouldn’t have been touching him”.
He could also recall offering to “keep an eye” on the boy from that point onwards, adding: “I probably said something along the lines to partly defend Eddie Heath … well, he was good with the kids, he’d got a way with the kids and he liked being with the kids and they seemed to like being with him. To be quite honest, I think I would have tried to stand up for Eddie Heath a bit.”
Gradi, who went on to manage Crewe in more than 1,000 games, also stated in his evidence that, having left the family home, he did decide the complaint was serious enough to mention it to Ron Suart, who had taken over as manager. However, that could not be corroborated because Suart died in 2015 and Geekie makes it clear in his report he does not accept that version of events.
Instead, Geekie says he believes the evidence put forward by the boy, now in his 50s, and the boy’s father, who had written a letter of complaint to Chelsea and was left with the impression that Gradi was “defending what had happened”. Gradi’s account states that the father repeatedly told him he did not want to get Heath in trouble and that “took the pressure off me, as far as I was concerned.” Informed of that, the father responds: “Why did I send the letter?”
Heath was responsible for identifying some of Chelsea’s leading players, including Ray Wilkins, Gary Locke, Steve Wicks, John Bumstead and Tommy Langley, during more than a decade at the club. However, he was also using his position to prey on young boys and was never prosecuted or investigated before dying in 1983, at the age of 54.
In his findings, Geekie says there were no safeguarding arrangements in place at Chelsea at the time. “However, Mr Gradi received a specific complaint from a father and son as to conduct by Mr Heath that they considered to be disturbing. There is no ambiguity or lack of detail about the matter he was dealing with. It must have been as plain to Mr Gradi as it is to me that he was being presented with a matter of seriousness and a matter that would not have been raised lightly. It needed to be taken seriously.
“Mr Gradi should have reported the matter to more senior staff. I have rejected his claim that he did so. Given the striking, and clearly memorable, nature of the event, this was a significant personal failure by Mr Gradi. It was a lost opportunity to expose Mr Heath and prevent further abuse.”
Geekie goes on to state there was no evidence to support Gradi’s assertion, more than 40 years after the event, that the boy was “blaming the sexual stuff going against him as a footballer”.