Swim coach jailed for three years for spying on girls as they changed

A swimming coach who set up cameras in a pool in Dublin and recorded young girls over a 12-month period as they were changing into their swimsuits has been jailed for three years.

Matthew Coward, from Shantalla Road in Santry in Dublin, pleaded guilty to the sexual exploitation of children and producing child abuse images and videos between September 2021 and September 2022.

The 32-year-old was a swimming coach for Swim Ireland for almost four years.

Judge Orla Crowe said Coward was in a position of dominance as a coach and the children worshipped him.

She sentenced him to four years in prison with the final 12 months suspended.

Coward was 30 years of age when he trained teenage girls at a swimming pool in Dublin.

His offending came to light after one of the victim’s fathers had dropped his daughter off at the pool in the early hours of the morning in February 2022. Coward gave her a pair of skins, a specialist swimsuit that can take 20 minutes to put on.

The children normally put them on at home.

Coward asked her to go into his poolside office and told her “you have to get completely naked to put it on”. She found this strange and in there she discovered an iPad propped up and became very upset at finding the recording device.

The child could not concentrate on her swimming and later told her father, who contacted Swim Ireland’s National Children’s Officer and Head of Safeguarding Kate Hills. She in turn contacted Tusla and the gardaí.

Ms Hills also then met the coach and when he was told about the allegations, he started to shake, appeared incredulous and asked: “What have I done? Who have I abused?”

A garda investigation established that Coward secretly recorded three children changing in his office. The videos also show him setting up two recording devices, one a mobile phone that was placed on the ground to record upwards.

He also arranged chairs to cordon off an area in the office. He can be heard speaking to the children before and after they went in to the office, asking them were they happy with the swimsuits and talking about chatting to their parents about buying a new swimsuit.

Detectives from Blanchardstown put Coward under observation and secured search warrants. Coward was stopped on his way home after breaking a red light and a number of phones and an iPad were handed over to gardaí. He was found unfit to drive.

In total, nearly 80 videos were found on two of Coward’s phones, which included illegal abusive videos and screenshots of children that focused on private parts.

There were also videos at various locations in the pool of children stretching on the side and focusing in on clothed parts of their bodies.

Gardaí also discovered a number of internet searches synonymous with searching for teenage pornography.

Victim ‘overcome with fear’

Victim impact statements on behalf of two of the children were heard in court last week. The girl who discovered the camera said her life changed from that moment.

“Matt would never do that,” she said. “I checked, I turned over the phone. I was scared, terrified, what will he do?”

She said she was overcome with fear and ran away when new coaches were assigned and they wanted to show the swimmers a video in the office. She said she feels anxiety every time there is a news story and that if Coward had pleaded guilty at the time she would have felt better.

She said she had been forced to think about a trial. “I thought he believed in me,” she said. “I trusted him and his coaching methods. I’m now more cautious, checking for danger.

“The main thing I have lost is trust, it’s hard to trust new coaches, teachers. I avoid one-on-one conversations. It’s hard to make new friends. It’s hard to come to terms with what happened, hard to understand he knew exactly what he was doing.”

Another child described how she used to love swimming, but that training is now a burden. Coward, she said, was like a father figure, but she is now much less open and happy and finds it difficult to trust people, men in particular, including the new coach who has done nothing wrong.

She also spoke about how her family and parents blame themselves and how her mother and father are still suffering.

Coward’s defence counsel James Dwyer said that Coward has regret, remorse and insight into his offending. He has since worked in Starbucks and as a night manager to provide for his family and has low self-esteem, suicide ideation, anxiety and depression.

The court heard that Coward, his wife and her mother wrote letters that were handed in to the judge, along with a number of psychological reports.

‘Considerable breach of trust’

Judge Crowe described Coward’s actions as “a considerable breach of trust”. She said he was the children’s coach, he had a degree of dominance and they worshipped him.

She said he used the ruse of changing into a professional swimsuit to violate their trust and privacy, and the consequences for the children have been devastating.

The maximum sentence for sexual exploitation is life in prison. The judge set a headline sentence of six years and imposed a four-year sentence, with the last 12 months suspended on those three counts.

The maximum sentence for production of child abuse imagery is 14 years and the judge set a headline sentence of five years and imposed a sentence of three years in prison.

All sentences are to run concurrently, which means Coward has been sentenced to four years in prison with the final year suspended.

In a statement, Swim Ireland said it is saddened that this has happened but very glad that a concern was raised which resulted in Mathew Coward being stood down immediately, and ultimately to his conviction and sentencing.

It commended the children for their bravery in speaking up and said its primary focus is on their welfare and it will continue to support the swimmers, their parents and carers.

Swim Ireland says Coward’s conviction continues to serve as a reminder of the importance of its Safeguarding Policies and Procedures and its efforts to create, protect and promote a culture that allows people to speak out about anything that makes them uncomfortable.