Accusation against Alejandro Ramirez

[Sabrina Chevannes]

My concern about this point is that someone who has been assaulted and wants to confide in someone and/or report it but is not ready to name the person may remain quiet if they feel they will be pressured into naming the person. I have no way of knowing how difficult it must be to speak up about such situations but suspect it must be one of the hardest things imaginable.

I don't see why, particularly now. Jen has done it and is widely acknowledged as a heroine, with just a bit of unpleasantness from the usual suspects. Meanwhile, Ramirez is sunk.

If Sabrina's abuser when she was a junior is who the chattering classes seem to think it is, then it would cost her absolutely nothing to say so - it's not as though she is out of the public gaze now anyway. If by any chance it isn't then, whatever one may think of that person, the present state of affairs is most unfair.

Dear Mr. Faulks

You do not know me, but you do seem to write as if you have every idea of what is going on in my life, or in my head.

Yes, I have not mentioned names.

There are several reasons for this:
1) There are indeed legal ramifications for this, as many have pointed out
2) I have been threatened by this man numerous times that should I ever leak anything, he would "ruin me".
3) I simply do not want to, and that's OK.

It's interesting how much admiration you have of Jen... you have mentioned her multiple times across posts. Would you like an introduction?

I'd like to address how it would "cost me absolutely nothing" to come forward.

Have you ever been a victim of sexual assault?
Have you ever spent years being emotionally manipulated by someone?
Have you ever been threatened and felt constantly on edge in a particular environment?
Do you consider re-living past trauma and re-visiting stories that mentally scarred you for decades "easy"?

Given the dismissive and condescending tone of your remarks, I presume the answer is "No" to all of these questions.

If so, then kindly refrain from assuming you understand just how "easy" this is.

I escaped from what I would consider a torture chamber many years ago and I have built up a really nice life for myself, one of which I'm extremely happy in.

I did what I thought would be a very quick Times Radio interview, but spoke honestly about my experiences in the industry.

I did not expect such a backlash from men. Yes, all the negativity so far has been from men.

However, multiple women came forward to thank me for speaking up. This is why I then recorded by personal video to them.

After which, I got more abuse.

Can you explain to me how I am benefitting from this in the slightest? I was extremely happy a week ago, living my new life. Now, I have been called every name under the sun, had lots of allegations against myself, lots of nasty abuse hurled at me online and I have to re-live through all this.

This has been an incredibly tough week and I'm really finding this all incredibly difficult to deal with. I can only describe it as PTSD with it dredging up everything that I've been through.

However, the fact that every single day, women are coming forward to tell me about their experiences makes it all worthwhile.

You have absolutely NO IDEA what goes on if you are writing messages like this. I would almost go as far as to predict that an incident happens at EVERY SINGLE TOURNAMENT where there is a woman.

You also have no idea what it's like living with these things for several years.

I was trapped in an environment where this was all normal. It was almost like Stockholm syndrome. Several other women are feeling the same.
If you cannot see it as an issue, then this is pretty disgraceful.

I understand you are part of the ECF and FIDE, and this would explain why we are in this situation.

I do not have to name names right now. I named names at the time and people didn't do anything. Why should I do it now? Because it suits you?!

I have 4 more stories to release this week. They are all about different people. This is not just one or two people, it's a general problem with the chess community and the ECF has sat on it for years.

Please feel free to read Story #3 too. What does the ECF have to say about all this treatment? I have plenty of people to corroborate all of those stories too.

Do not act as if you're superior to everyone.

If you are ignoring the issue of sexual assault, then you are complicit.

I will not be sticking around to engage in toxic debate about this topic, but I really wanted to drop in to say that multiple people have sent me the link to your comments and I am not impressed that an official representative of our governing bodies has such a disgusting attitude.

Apologies to everyone else on this forum who are supportive, caring and generally great humans.

It's not everyone, but it is the horrible few who ruin it for all.

[Mark Howitt]

Sabrina that is a great post.

I have that guy on ignore...

I hope your life continues to improve.

[Angus French]

The ECF website shows the names of two safeguarding officers who can be emailed at [email protected]

Safeguarding generally deals with safeguarding groups seen as particularly vulnerable, that being minors and adults incapable or less capable of giving informed legal consent.

I am not sure that the ECF has an a particular officer assigned to dealing with accusations of sexual assault or the like.

I agree it should be clear who to approach on issues of sexual harassment or assault or sexism - or, also, on issues of equality. In the meantime I guess the Safeguarding Officers are the most likely choice. I wonder, though, if it might be helpful if separate email addresses were provided for the two current officers - might someone wishing to raise an issue or make a complaint be more comfortable doing so to a female safeguarding officer, for example? Might it be useful - for reassurance - to provide some biographical background information for safeguarding officers? What do other organisations do?

[John Upham]

"In the Introduction chapter of his book Winning, published in 2021, Short said "This is my first book, and it has taken a global pandemic for me to write it" and "I must confess that all books with my name on the cover – and with profound apologies to those who bought them – were all ghost-written"."

I'm not so sure that this is completely correct.

I am thinking that the below tome was not ghost written:

51RLglD2QCL.jpg

and that

Nigel Short : Chess Prodigy

was written by David Short, Nigel's father:

51c2MOmc5wL.jpg

[John Upham]

The J.N.Walker case isn't really anything to do with the BCF/ECF, though, is it? He's best known for being a chess author, which is not something over which the federation has any jurisdiction.

His naughtiness was not conducted whilst on authoring duties. It was during chess teaching / coaching duties.

I believe BH Wood was so incensed that he ordered that all copies of JNWs various publications were pulped.

[Carl Hibbard]

I will remove some of the Howitt off topic drivel when I return from holiday tomorrow.

[Mark Howitt]

No need for that insult- simply saying what's on my mind.

Plenty of other people talk 'drivel' yet I ignore vast majority of it.

[Mick Norris]

I will remove some of the Howitt off topic drivel when I return from holiday tomorrow.

That would be good, hope you are having a good holiday Carl

[Mick Norris]

The ECF website shows the names of two safeguarding officers who can be emailed at [email protected]

Safeguarding generally deals with safeguarding groups seen as particularly vulnerable, that being minors and adults incapable or less capable of giving informed legal consent.

I am not sure that the ECF has an a particular officer assigned to dealing with accusations of sexual assault or the like.

I agree it should be clear who to approach on issues of sexual harassment or assault or sexism - or, also, on issues of equality. In the meantime I guess the Safeguarding Officers are the most likely choice. I wonder, though, if it might be helpful if separate email addresses were provided for the two current officers - might someone wishing to raise an issue or make a complaint be more comfortable doing so to a female safeguarding officer, for example? Might it be useful - for reassurance - to provide some biographical background information for safeguarding officers? What do other organisations do?

That's an interesting perspective Angus, I assume you could email the safeguarding address given and ask that Jo deals with it rather than Paul (I don't know either of them, I'm not sure background bio would be needed, but it wouldn't do any harm)

The MCF has a Safeguarding Officer, it was Julian Clissold and is now Simon Wright (who is both a vicar and a doctor)

As far as going to the ECF Directors direct, I'd have 100% confidence in Mike Truran as a point of contact but about zero in Dominic Lawson, others may have a different view

[Mark Howitt]

What I'm going to do is save everything interesting thing I write here anyway then if any fanatical censors want to censor I'll just publish it on my site if I want

[Ian Thompson]

What I'm going to do is save everything interesting thing I write here anyway then if any fanatical censors want to censor I'll just publish it on my site if I want

Perhaps you could explain to us what

Does anyone know if it's possible to get refunds for having bought Chess in past?

Palliser's writing was sooooooo bad...

has to do with either Alejandro Ramirez or the discussion of Sabrina Chevannes experiences that this thread has now morphed into? If you want to ask questions like that, put it in a new thread called something like "[Poor] Quality of Chess Magazine".

[Roger Lancaster]

"What I'm going to do is save everything interesting thing I write here" as a companion volume to the Putin treatise on human rights, perhaps?

[J T Melsom]

Can I suggest posters resist further comment until the thread has been moderated? Recent posts are doing little more than compounding the problem and giving Carl more work. (Obviously happy for this post to be deleted as part of the process).

[Andrew Zigmond]

Can I suggest posters resist further comment until the thread has been moderated? Recent posts are doing little more than compounding the problem and giving Carl more work. (Obviously happy for this post to be deleted as part of the process).

Agreed. I personally think that while there are important issues to be discussed (possibly the most important English chess will ever grapple with) this thread could get quite dangerously out of control. Certainly if anything did become legally actionable then the complainant and (to a lesser extent) the accused do have rights.

Off topic (so happy for this to be removed) but Richard Palliser (a friend of many years standing) is merely the editor of Chess Magazine. He writes very little of the content and indeed the editorial round up at the start is Malcolm Pein's work.

[Matt Bridgeman]

Other than Story One, is Story Two the same offender or perhaps an overseas GM this time? It seems to be a more serious sexual assault. Story 3 touches on favouritism by the ECF towards male rather than female national teams. It’s an interesting topic as probably the female English team probably has much more scope for international improvement than the Open team, as there are just so many good female players emerging lately. Story 4 is probably the worst yet, which is a straight out rape! I wonder who that lovely chap was?