Former French tennis prodigy Angelique Cauchy is bravely sharing the horrifying allegations of the sexual abuse she suffered as a teenager.
Cauchy shared her accusations last week, testifying to the Palais Bourbon, part of the French National Assembly, about the sexual assault she allegedly endured at the hands of her former coach, Andrew Geddes, according to The Sun.
Now 36, Cauchy said Geddes “raped me more than 400 times in two years,” per euro.eseuro.com.
Cauchy said she would be raped three times per day and “thought many times about committing suicide.”
According to the Sun, “Geddes was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2021 after being found guilty of raping and sexually assaulting four girls aged between 12 and 17.”
Cauchy came public with her case last month.
Cauchy said she started working with Geddes, now 55, in 1999 and claimed the sexual harassment began almost immediately.
Cauchy said the assaults started when she was 12 years old and No. 2 in the junior tennis rankings. She indicated she was 15 at the height of the abuse.
“I told him, ‘No, you shouldn’t, it’s not right, I don’t want to,'” Cauchy said in heartbreaking testimony.
“And he replied to me, ‘You know it happens sometimes in relationships between coach and student, we spend a lot of time together, it’s normal.'”
Cauchy alleged she wasn’t the only victim of Geddes’ predatory behavior.
“It was known in the tennis world that his behavior with young girls was not correct,” Cauchy testified. “When a woman complained to the club president that he had behaved inappropriately towards young people with verbal and physical violence, the answer was, ‘Yes, but he brings us titles.'”
As a result, Cauchy said, “I was in prison. … I couldn’t get out when I wanted and afterwards, I had to stay in the place where it had happened.”
Now a physical education teacher and tennis coach, Cauchy alleged she was blackmailed by Geddes into thinking she had contracted AIDS from her coach.
Cauchy’s testimony to the French Parliament was part of an inquiry to identify the “shortcomings within sports federations, the sport movement and sports governance bodies,” according to The Express.