Brixton football coach found not guilty of anal rape

A football coach has been found not guilty of anal rape which he said never happened.

Wallace Hermit, from Howberry Road, Thornton Heath, was accused of assaulting the woman in summer 2015.

But she did not make her complaint, of sexual assault, until 2018.

Four days later she asked for the investigation to be discontinued. But a year later she escalated the allegation to rape.

Mr Hermit, who mentors female footballers as well as coaching boys in the sport, was accused of carrying on the assault when she pleaded with him to stop and began to cry, Inner London Crown Court heard.

But he told the jury : “I am a Rasta so she knows she can’t say I raped her so she has to bring something different.”

The 60-year-old, who has been a coach at the Ferndale leisure centre in Brixton – with sessions paid for by parents – for up to 17 years, says the incident never happened.

The complainant reported it three years after she claimed it happened, in September 2018, with a 999 call – but then withdrew the claim of attempted indecent assault four days later.

A year later she asked for the investigation to be reopened and escalated the claim to anal rape.

She also claimed he hit her when she tried to confront him at his home. He told the court: “I said, don’t come back here and slammed the door in her face.”

The court heard that the woman agreed to consensual sex but not anything else and asked him to stop  because it hurt and that she began to cry. She said she tried to push him off but he was 6ft 3in tall and 18 stone.

The woman told the court: “He was hurting me and he knew he was hurting me. I was crying. I asked him to stop and he didn’t. He did mean it, because he did not stop. Afterwards he just left.”

She said: “Reporting it was a very big thing. I was scared of the word ‘rape’. I did not use it for a long time afterwards.  I did not want to be someone who had been raped.”

The woman also told the court: “This has been the hardest thing I have ever had to do.”

The court heard Wallace, who was living at his sister’s house in Streatham at the time, said in his police interview: “This is all vindictive spiteful behaviour. I have spent 25 years building up in this community. For her to use this sordid thing beggars belief.

“I grew up in Brixton. This is where I was born. For someone to try and use this against me as a person, as a human being, working with young people for 17 years as a youth worker.”

A mum, Elsa Ben Simon, whose son goes to his coaching sessions, appeared for the defence and said: “He used to look after my son and I have socialised with him – dinner and music events, things like that.

“Mr Hermit had several girlfriends – he never hid it. That is none of my business.”

Another mum, Stacy Roberts, said: “I had been in a very bad situation myself and he became a mentor and helped me build myself up. I see him every day.

“He gets on with everyone. It is hard not to. He is a people person. I have never seen him behave inappropriately. I trust him more than a lot of people in my life. He is a good man. He made me stronger, into a better mother and a better person.”