A former tennis star has testified that her coach raped her “three times a day” as a child while she was trapped “in prison.”
French prodigy Angelique Cauchy began working with Andrew Gueddes in 1999 at the Sarcelles Tennis Club in Paris when she was 12 years old. But within weeks, the convicted child rapist started his sexual harassment on Cauchy, she testified, according to The Sun.
In 2021, Gueddes received an 18-year prison sentence after he was found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting four girls between the ages of 12-17, the outlet noted.
Cauchy, who is now 36, estimated that she suffered abuse around 200 times per year, and also claims that the tennis club’s president didn’t do anything about the complaints because of Gueddes’ success, per The Sun.
I Was Raped 400 Times By My Coach – French Tennis Star, Angelique Cauchy Testifies Before Parliament | Sahara Reporters https://t.co/JWlqMYrUQj pic.twitter.com/jad8qOdibY
— Sahara Reporters (@SaharaReporters) September 15, 2023
“Me violaba tres veces al día”
El testimonio de la tenista Angélique Cauchy contra su entrenador que ha sacudido a Francia https://t.co/44Xh9n0A3j pic.twitter.com/XBPHLfqOQ1
— elDiario.es (@eldiarioes) September 13, 2023
“It happened within not even two or three months,” Cauchy testified before the French National Assembly in early September. “I told him, ‘No, you shouldn’t, it’s not right, I don’t want to,'” she said, per the outlet. “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,” she continued, adding that Cauchy also deceived her into believing he had given her AIDS.
Cauchy then shifted her testimony the tennis club’s president. (RELATED: Over A Dozen Students Arrested After Massive Brawl Erupts At Florida High School)
“When a woman complained to the club president that [Gueddes] had behaved inappropriately towards young people with verbal and physical violence, the answer was, ‘Yes, but he brings us titles,'” she testified, according to The Sun.
Cauchy currently works as a tennis coach and physical education teacher, the outlet noted.