UK Athletics coach Toni Minichiello who helped Jessica Ennis-Hill to gold banned for life for sexual misconduct

UK Athletics coach Toni Minichiello, who worked with athletes including multiple Olympic gold medal winner Jessica Ennis-Hill, has been banned for life for ‘sexually physical behaviour’ including emotional abuse and bullying spanning a 15-year period.

The 56-year-old was found guilty of 11 different serious charges after an investigation by UK Athletics, including making inappropriate sexual comments to athletes he coached, touching the breasts of a female athlete without consent, and mimicking sex acts during training sessions.

The Sheffield-born coach was suspended last summer pending the findings of the investigation, and has now been banned in perpetuity from applying for a license to practice again in future for incidents which amounted to ‘gross breaches of trust’ and had a ‘severe consequences for the mental health and mental wellbeing of the athletes under his charge.’

UKA released a scathing statement detailing its findings on Tuesday morning.

‘UKA has considered the matter and decided that these findings are of the utmost seriousness, the statement reads. ‘They amount to a large number of breaches of the UKA Coach Licence Terms over a 15-year period.

‘The issuance of a UKA licence to a coach is essentially a representation on behalf of UKA that the coach in question can be trusted with the athletes under his charge. UKA is firmly of the view that there will never be a time in the future at which it would be appropriate to grant that assurance and issue such a licence.’

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The 11 charges which were upheld against Minichiello compromise the following incidents:

Minichiello began coaching Ennis-Hall when she was aged 13, and oversaw her career at