In last October's issue of CHESS, Jim Plaskett drew attention to the BCF's failure to act over complaints about former British Champion Brian Eley's alleged sexual abuse of children. In 1979 Plaskett, then 14 years old, reported Eley's misconduct to the then President of the BCF, David Anderton, but Plaskett claims that nothing was done to deny Eley access to young chess players. In the January 1997 issue of Chess Anderton issued a stinging rebuttal. Er, not quite. Let's look at his statement again:

'[Plaskett] suggests that I did nothing in response to his complaints. This is not correct. In fact, the following year, after an incident involving the disqualification of the English Team for wilful disobedience at the Glorney Cup at which Brian Eley was England Team Manager, he was never again given any BCF administrative post or responsibilities.'

FACT: The reason for Eley's dismissal as England Team Manager had nothing to do with the charges raised by Plaskett and others, as Anderton himself indicates.

The situation in England was a lot worse than most people are aware of, and Anderton's mishandling of the situation did not help. Most of the victims have not come forward our of fear or embarrassment.

<Ray Keene> I guess I'm misinterpreting your words here, but you're not suggesting that Dutch authorities are deliberately holding Brian Eley back, are you?

<Open Defence> Well of course if the Dutch government stands behinds their own values and holds them highly, then nobody gets extradited without very specific grounds.

But also, like you, I'm sadly not more informed about the details of this case. :(

<Open Defence> Are you referring to the Dutroux case in Belgium? If so, well even though Belgium and the Netherlands are neighbouring countries, I can assure you the Dutch way of handling pedophiles is very thorough!