Brian Eley: the Jimmy Savile of chess
Brian Ratcliffe Eley, who died last April aged 75, preyed on large numbers of children in the chess world in the 1970s and 80s. He was not arrested until 1991. After that he skipped bail and managed to live the rest of his life in Amsterdam. Given the scale of his offences, it is no exaggeration to call him the Jimmy Savile of chess.
There were several different factors which helped him remain at large. There were the British Chess Federation’s attempts to avoid scandal and the failure by many victims to make formal police reports. It seems harder for male victims to talk about this type of abuse than it was for women in the MeToo campaign. A man who perceives himself as heterosexual often does not like to admit to a homosexual experience, even if it was not consensual. There were kindly Dutch people who helped Eley after being spun a yarn about a legal disagreement with the BCF. Harder to explain is the police inaction on three occasions when he could have been picked up easily, as is the fact that he was taken off the Interpol Wanted list.
I first became aware of the Eley story after I married James Plaskett, a Grandmaster and former British chess champion in 1995. At 14, James was invited to Eley’s bedroom in a B&B where he was staying for a chess tournament. They sat on the bed analysing a game and Eley ruffled James’s hair before remarking that he did not like it. Nothing further happened and James steered clear of Eley afterwards. By the 1980s Eley was beginning to have a reputation for this sort of thing. Some of Eley’s other passes were equally hard to make police matters, not exactly illegal but undesirable in the world of coaching. I have been told of another player of 15 going to a tournament and having to sleep in the back of Eley’s van with him. They had separate sleeping bags, but Eley kept dropping hints that sharing their body warmth would be a good idea if the night got cold. In another case he was ringing a 13-year old and wishing he could tuck him into bed. After something closer to an actual assault, a friend of James’s publicly kicked Eley in the balls.
My husband sometimes regrets not having taken aside the parents of any child he saw being taught by Eley to give them a friendly warning. According to rumours in the chess world, there were suicides, admissions to mental hospitals as well as many kids being put off chess for life. Some of Eley’s victims are supposed to have become abusers in a small way themselves. My husband and others complained repeatedly about Eley in the late 70s and 80s to the British Chess Federation (BCF). On one occasion, perturbed by the BCF’s then president and international director David Anderton’s lack of action, James asked how concerned he would be if his ten-year-old son were being buggered by Brian Eley.
If it is any comfort to the victims, Eley seems to have had a miserable time on the run. Perhaps a few years in jail, using his skills to teach other prisoners, then coming out to resume his former life, would have been a better path. Anything Eley received for the sale of his house or business ran out rather rapidly. In the early days he was careless with his identity and hustled in a chess café for a few guilders a game. Even at that stage he looked poor and old for his age. Later on, he attached himself to religious organisations, doing computer work in an ashram for years under the name “Ray”. Eventually he was suspected of hacking. The ashram has gone now. Then he hung out with the Lutheran community as “David” and did some voluntary work with the food bank. As he grew old, he was unable to claim either British or Dutch pensions. Applying would have betrayed his real identity.
Why was Eley never rounded up? It would be easy to claim police incompetence. Google South Yorks Police and you will find a wealth of material relating to Hillsborough and the Rotherham grooming scandal. But the one officer James spoke to, Inspector Moon, seemed to be extremely diligent. He was the arresting officer and had put together more than 70 affidavits relating to the case. James contacted him again in 2006 and they talked. Although Eley had vanished for about fifteen years at that stage, Moon still seemed to be keeping an eye on the case. I would have loved to speak to Inspector Moon, but South Yorks Police would not even furnish me with his Christian name. A victim who talked to him had this to say: “When I last spoke with him he’d retired and was working helping offenders reintegrate into society. He was genuinely gutted – damaged – at Eley having got away with it, and I remember feeling really sorry for him.”
I made FOI requests to South Yorks Police, I asked the Dutch police more informally for information. I also emailed Interpol several times. None of this got me anywhere. I was able, however, to find out a few facts about Eley’s life in Amsterdam by corresponding with the Pastor who buried him and by following hints in the English Chess Federation’s forum and on Facebook, which led me to players who had seen him in Amsterdam. The Pastor’s sermon on the Find a Grave site defined Eley as an onderduiker, an “under-diver” — a word used of someone who had to be in hiding. It was used of the Dutch Jews in WWII, those who had to be hidden to save them. The Pastor seems to have had no idea that he was describing a paedophile.
Eley made friends and checked out Amsterdam as a possible haven in 1988 before his actual need to disappear in 1991. He had a cover tale of a disagreement with the BCF and a legal case connected to that. Some of those who helped thought he was escaping a financial scandal rather than one of sex abuse.
After he jumped bail, Brian Eley had been the subject of a report on Crimewatch, but this would not have been seen either by Dutch players or British players living in Holland. My husband spoke to a chess café owner who had not turned him in to the police. It seemed as if he entertained the possibility of Eley’s innocence or at the least far less guilt. The charges Eley would have had to answer in court related to one underage male only.
Some elements in his appearance, his eyes and expression chiefly, remained recognisable for those who had seen him or his old photos, Sometimes, it was the standard of his chess that betrayed him to other Master-strength chess players. I have made attempts to explain the reasons he was not picked up. But there is still a mystery here. I wanted to discard as urban legends the chess world rumours that he was MI6 or a police informant. Yet, there are elements that defy explanation.
There were three moments when his precise whereabouts were given to the police, but they failed to pick him up. In one of these moments, circa 1992, Grandmaster Stuart Conquest and a Dutch player notified the police in Amsterdam. The Dutch police said that they were phoning New Scotland Yard, but that the phone was engaged. This has always sounded odd, and I wondered why they did not try again. There were two other occasions a year or so later when a chess-loving British police inspector gave Crimestoppers Eley’s exact location. Yet again, Eley was not picked up. Perhaps oddest of all is the fact that he was taken off the Interpol Wanted list. They have never replied to any query I have made about this. Surely the only reasons a person would be dropped from this list should be an arrest or their death?
Eley eventually died from a respiratory infection at the age of 75. Contacts who had missed him asked the police to break in and see if he was all right. He was found dead and a passport in a drawer gave the true identity of “David”. I have not been able to find out if that passport was current or the old one he brought when he escaped in 1991.
Links: The Strange History of Brian Ratcliffe Eley | Fiona Pitt-Kethley on Patreon
Brian Russel / Ratcliffe “Ray” Eley (1946-2022): homenaje de Find a Grave
Brian Eley – English Chess Forum (ecforum.org.uk)
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