Angelique Cauchy, a former French tennis player testified against her childhood coach Andrew Geddes for charges of rape and sexual misconduct against a minor. The statement confirms the ruling from 2021 which held the suspect accountable of these charges.
Before this testimony, it was announced in July 2023, that an inquiry commission would be set up to find and fix the flaws within sports federations, the sport movement, and sports governance bodies. Cauchy’s testimony comes at a pivotal point during the inquiry.
In her statement to the Palais Bourbon last year, the French player went through the mishaps and tortures she and several other players had gone through during that time. Her account of sexual misconduct can be tracked all the way back to the year 1999 when she was not even a teenager.
Recalling the horrors from her childhood, Cauchy provided details of the actions and behavior of her former coach Andrew Geddes.
“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.”
Cauchy gave accounts of how these incidents were not a one-time occurrence, instead, she was raped over 400 times and at times thrice in a day in the 15-day training camp in La Baule. She even expressed the mental trauma she had gone through due to that incident which almost pushed her to commit suicide.
“I thought many times about committing suicide. 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 to,” she said in her testimony at the Palais Bourbon (French Parliament).
Angelique Cauchy is now a physical education teacher and a tennis coach empowering the new generation of French tennis players to not just be great competitors and players but also as a strong voice against such crimes.
Ex-tennis coach Andrew Gueddes jailed for 18 years for rape of Angelique Cauchy and other minors
Andrew Geddes, 54, was deemed guilty of the minor rape case, exiling the former French coach to an 18-year-long prison.
Geddes was an active French coach during the 2000s and 2010s. The accused rapist is set to have been involved in two rape incidents during that timeline. He treated his females as ‘sex slaves’ and even justified his actions to them.
Andrew Geddes even pledged guilty to these accusations in the court hearing and said that these statements against him made him feel like ‘garbage’.
