Another Offender

[bassaiguy]

Another sex offender has popped up in the ranks of martial arts instructors, this time in my neck of the woods. Here's a link: http://bangordailynews.com/2013/03/08/news/mid-maine/martial-arts-instructor-accused-of-having-sex-with-student/?ref=polbeat

There aren't that many full-time MA instructors in Maine and I've only briefly heard of this guy. Apparently, he was a BJJ instructor hired to teach the special BJJ program at a karate school.

This is one of the things that has always scared me about opening my own school. What liability do the owners and other staff have? How can you recruit and train staff to avoid these incidents. What would you do as an instructor/owner of a school if one of your employees did this?

After the high profile incidents in England over the past few years and similar incidents in the States is there any way to avoid this?

[ps1]

Lloyd Irvin is getting into some trouble in this department as well. not anything with miners..but certainly accused of taking advantage of his female team members.

[DWx]

Sad seeing stuff like this.

This is one of the things that has always scared me about opening my own school. What liability do the owners and other staff have? How can you recruit and train staff to avoid these incidents. What would you do as an instructor/owner of a school if one of your employees did this?

The sad truth is I don't think you'll ever eliminate it totally. You can put measures in place though to guard against it.

I don't know if you have something equivalent in the states but in the UK we have background checks by the Criminal Records Bureau (CRB) which can go some way to identifying offenders. In our club we also have a strict child protection measures in place such as adults are never left alone with a child, a parent or another adult has to be present. And other stuff like instructors avoid touching students too