‘My abuser was too old and ill to go to court – this is how I got justice’

Taking all his clothes off as he got ready to step on the scales in front of his boxing coach, 11-year-old Simon Byrne assumed it was a normal pre-match ritual.

Then, one of the older lads in the room said to the young boy: ‘He is going to start touching you now’. 

It was a moment that cemented the beginning of four years of sexual abuse at the hands of a man Simon’s family considered a good friend. 

Coach Patrick Lowe had insisted the schoolboy needed to strip naked in a private room at his boxing gym for the weigh-in – a pivotal moment for any young boxer’s career, but usually done fully clothed. 

‘I was brought into this small room and it started. But I didn’t know what it was,’ Simon tells Metro. ‘It continued until I turned 15, and I became big enough to stop it.’ 

Lowe was known for walking into the showers while the boys were washing and touching them, making jokes ‘which were much too blue’ in front of minors. 

However, he always made sure to isolate Simon for some of the worst of his abuse, and used his friendship with his parents to keep him quiet.

This included offers of private sessions and driving him home so his mum and dad didn’t have to pick him up. The paedophile would always warn Simon to keep quiet about what he was doing to him. 

‘He’d say that if I told anyone he would make my family’s life hell,’ Simon remembers. ‘This included threats of me “going missing” and him hurting me. 

‘I have never felt comfortable around older men since,’ he adds.

‘I always knew something had happened to him’

Tragically, Simon’s parents went to their graves not ever knowing about what their son went through. Worried they might ‘feel guilty’ for making him join the boxing gym in the first place, he decided to keep his ordeal from his mum and dad. 

The only person Simon did tell was his wife, Maria, who he first met when they were just 16 and later married in 1995. Although it took until adulthood for them to start a romantic relationship, Maria said she had always known there was ‘he was carrying issues from his childhood’. 

She tells Metro: ‘I just waited until he was ready to tell me.’ 

It was after having children of his own that the impact of the abuse started to bubble to the surface for Simon  – especially as he still lived less than two miles away from his abuser.

He would constantly worry about keeping his two sons safe, refusing to let them have sleepovers or go on school trips. But it wasn’t until his eldest boy started to show an interest in boxing, that Simon’s mental health truly spiralled and he had a breakdown in 2015. 

Maria remembers: ‘I mentioned that our son was asking about joining a local boxing club and Simon suddenly just went crackers inside our home. It was an incredibly difficult time, and he spiralled from there,’ she remembers.

‘I felt like there was a dark force inside me’

Simon stopped speaking and sleeping, with Maria coming home to find equipment lying on the side which could potentially help her husband take his own life.

‘It felt like there was a dark force inside of me and I felt so scared. Suicide felt like the only way out,’ Simon admits. ‘I also felt incredibly angry at myself for not speaking out about what had happened to me. 

‘Around 10 years earlier, I remember a young girl came forward after being abused by Lowe, and I felt powerless and weak that maybe I could have done something to help her. But I had not told a soul yet, especially as my parents who were suffering with ill health.

‘There’s a stigma to knowing people know you have been abused. You are showing everyone your scars.’

It wasn’t until lockdown in 2021, that Simon found the strength to speak out about the horrific trauma he had suffered as a child. Watching the news with Maria, a bulletin on sexual abuse committed by paedophile football coach Barry Bennell.

‘Watching that made me realise I wanted and needed to come forward,’ he explains. 

‘Our worst fears were realised in the middle of the Irish Sea’

However, due to Covid-19 restraints, the process of reporting it was ‘extremely difficult’, especially as the couple had moved to Ireland in 2000 to start afresh.

The couple told their eldest son about the abuse. Although he was very upset upon learning what happened to his dad, he finally understood what had led to Simon’s breakdown.

The family were given a court date in April 2025, leaving Simon feeling ‘distraught’ at the two-year wait.

Then, in another twist of the knife, when they finally boarded the ferry to come to the UK for the trial, they received a call to say Lowe had been declared unfit to stand as he was in the early stages of dementia.

‘Our worst fears had been realised in the middle of the Irish Sea,’ remembers Maria.

Despite feeling broken inside, the couple continued on their journey to Manchester, where they were supported by extended family awaiting their arrival.

‘Lowe had robbed me of being able to look him in the eye and take that power back,’ recalls Simon. But then he did something not many know to do – he pursued a fact-finding hearing, which even the most experienced of legal officials have rarely seen in action.

The hearing is still similar to a trial, with a jury listening to both the prosecution and the defense. It is their to establish whether the allegations put forward are true, but there is no sentencing, and no ‘guilty’ verdict. 

‘We took it all the way to the top’

To get this, they went all the way to the top. ‘We got in touch with Number 10 and played to Sir Keir Starmer’s old role in the CPS – and they did get back to us,’ says Maria.

In a meeting with members of Starmer’s team, Simon told them, ‘we don’t care what you do, we just want a hearing as soon as possible’. 

A month after their original court case was due to start, his wish was granted. The Minshull Street Crown Court in Manchester was packed with barristers, solicitors and judges watching from the public gallery, just to see this type of hearing for the first time.

Lowe was still too ill to attend. He had already been tried and convicted when the young girl came forward in 2005 – but this time it was Simon’s turn.  

And when the fact came back ‘proven’- the pair ‘fell apart’, along with the rest of the room.

Judge Neil Usher remarked ‘it did not please him to not be able to sentence Lowe’, and jurors became visibly emotional when they realised Lowe would not receive a punishment. 

Now, the couple are campaigning for there to be more rigid outcomes for elderly sex offenders, particularly with secure care homes. 

‘If prison is not suitable, there must be somewhere else for them away from the general public,’ says Maria.

She and Simon are also helping other people achieve a sense of justice, by just offering a listening ear which can relate to what victims are going through.

They have set up a petition and Simon’s Law UK social media pages, and through here people have reached out to say: ‘This happened to me too.’

Simon said: ‘We are offering a place for people to offload. I met a man who was abused by his table tennis coach as well, so sadly abuse seems to be rampant across different sports.

‘We don’t want anyone else to go through what we did alone. And we want to tell as many people as we can, that it’s okay to reach out.’ 

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