A North London Tennis club captain jailed for molesting boys

Admin l Friday, May 28, 2021

 

LONDON, Nigeria – John Ridley, a retired  stockbroker  and captain of North London Tennis Club has been jailed for sexually molesting two boys for over a period of 20 years.

Ridley(65) has access to the victims through a North London Tennis club and Crusaders, a church-run youth charity. He was found guilty at Southwark Crown Court on three counts of indecent assault of one of the victims between March 1987 and March 1995, when he was just six to 13.

Ridley was in addition convicted on two counts of sexually touching another victim aged 12 to 15 between June 2004 and May 2008. He was arrested on suspicion by officers of the National Crime Agency for possessing indecent images of children on 22 February 2018 when he landed at Heathrow Airport from Peru.

Several weeks later a man alleged that Ridley repeatedly sexually assaulted him by spanking him between 2004 and 2008 when he was around 13-years-old and played tennis at a north London club.

Ridley, according to the NCA was captain of the team and gave the boy money for playing in adult doubles matches when they were short of players. But one day Ridley told the boy he owed him £200 and that if he did not pay it he would spank him.

Ridley, of Leicester Road, Barnet, drove the victim to a nearby forest where he sexually assaulted him. Ridley continued paying the boy but again demanded the money back or he would spank him again.

This time he made the boy visit his home where he beat his bottom with a stick. In September 2018 the second victim told the NCA that Ridley repeatedly sexually assaulted him when he was a boy.