Polish MP accuses head of Polish Tennis Association of sexually abusing her as a child

A Polish MP, Katarzyna Kotula, has claimed that she was sexually abused as a child by her then tennis coach, Mirosław Skrzypczyński, who now serves as the head of the Polish Tennis Association (PZT).

“Behind closed doors, he touched my intimate places, my breasts, buttocks,” Kotula told news outlet Onet. “Mirosław Skrzypczyński sexually assaulted me at least a dozen times over three years…I was a kid, 13-years-old…He was a sexual predator.”

The MP decided to come forward after Skrzypczyński had questioned the reliability of accusations against him published by Onet based on the testimony of anonymous alleged victims.

In an official statement issued in response to the original article, Skrzypczyński denied any wrongdoing, called the accusations “ungrounded” and part of a “brutal political fight”, and threatened legal action.

“If Mirosław Skrzypczyński wants names, very well, I am not afraid to speak up: my name is Katarzyna Kotula and years ago as a child I was hurt by him,” she told Onet.

Kotula recalls that Skrzypczyński took up a job in a tennis club in her hometown Gryfino, in northwestern Poland. He was considered “an incredible coach” and “was meant to bring the players to new heights”.

However, during group training, he would make “disgusting comments” about female teenage players and remarks such as: “When a woman is saying ‘no’, she’s thinking ‘yes'”.

“He started looking for ways to have physical contact, touching and rubbing against us,” recalls Kotula. Under the pretext of talking about her mistakes during the practice, he would invite her to his office, and “he would lock the doors from the inside and hurt me”.

Other girls at the club had suffered similar experiences, she adds, recalling a situation in which a player was told by the coach to strip naked in front of the group as a punishment. Kotula said she hoped that the decision to come forward would encourage others to “break the silence”.

Yesterday, another alleged victim did come forward. Ewa Ciszek said that, when she was working as a waitress at a sports event, Skrzypczyński suggested during breakfast that she could “try his eggs”, massaging his crotch.

Later, when she was serving coffee, he allegedly made comments about her breasts and how he would like to “suck them” and “drink milk from them”. He also invited her to spend a night in his room.

Asked by Onet about the inappropriate behaviour at the event, the organisers, De Arte Athletica, said that no complaints were made about Skrzypczyński. Skrzypczyński and the PZT have not responded to the new allegations made yesterday.

Since the beginning of the international #MeToo movement, which encouraged abuse victims to come forward and seek justice, a number of cases of sexual harassment and abuse culture have to light in Poland.

Earlier this year, a former coach of the Polish national cycling team, Andrzej P., was sentenced to 4.5 years in prison for sexual abuse and was banned from his profession for six years and from any contact with his victims.

In March, students at the University of Warsaw (UW), one of Poland’s top colleges, accused the institution of “turning a blind eye” to sexual abuse after claims that a prominent professor had been sexually harassing students for decades.

Main image credit: Klub Lewicy/Flickr (under public domain)

Agnieszka Wądołowska

Agnieszka Wądołowska is deputy editor of Notes from Poland. She has previously worked for Gazeta.pl and Tokfm.pl and contributed to Gazeta Wyborcza, Wysokie Obcasy, Duży Format, Midrasz and Kultura Liberalna