Paul Anthony Hickson (10 May 1947 – 27 December 2008)[citation needed] was a British swimming coach and convicted sex offender.
He grew up on Norwich Road in Leicester, the son of Arthur Walter Hickson (1914–2000) and Iris Mary Wilby (1920–2009), who had married in 1940.
[5] He later swam with Leicester Swimming Club at Vestry Street Baths (closed around 1973, demolished, now Curve theatre).
At Coventry was Annabelle Cripps, Bettina Doyle, Paul Howe, Gareth Sykes and David Stacey.
[14] He went as a coach to the 1982 World Aquatics Championships in Guayaquil in Ecuador at the end of July 1982, where he complained about the team's travel arrangements and accommodation.
[27] He was chosen to be the team manager for the 1989 Summer Universiade, which was to be in Brazil, but was held in West Germany without any swimming events.
[28][29] On 16 November 1989, he wrote to The Times, discussing the Commonwealth Games Council for Wales, giving an address in Uplands, Swansea.
[31] He was the England team coach for the July 1992 European Schools Swimming Championships in Caen in northern France.
[33] When assistant director of physical education at University College Swansea, in 1987, he had made a female student strip naked in a fitness test.
The student had complained to the university, but Hickson received only a written warning from the director of physical education, Stan Addicott, around the end of 1987.
The university did not alert the British Olympic Association or the Amateur Swimming Federation (headquartered in Loughborough) about his conduct.
[35] On 21 July 1992, 16-year-old Emma-Jane Needle of Porthcawl mentioned that Hickson had tried to molest her, accidentally overheard by police Detective Sergeant Roger Went.
In September 1992, four female witnesses were firstly interviewed by Detective Sergeant Tony Thomas, of the Family Support Unit in Skewen.
On 23 December 1994, he was followed by police after arriving in Kent from Roubaix in northern France, and was found at Center Parcs holiday village in Sherwood Forest and re-arrested.
Hickson had travelled the whole world with the British team, and Swansea police had had beliefs that he could end up in a place like Australia or the United States, requiring extradition if discovered.
He eventually appeared at Cardiff Crown Court on 5 September 1995, where he was accused of carrying out systematic indecent assault and rape over fifteen years.
He was cleared of two charges of indecent assault against a former Commonwealth Games swimmer and a twenty-year-old Swansea University student.
Following his conviction, the chief executive of the Amateur Swimming Federation of Great Britain expressed that the body were "extremely concerned" that one of their coaches could be guilty of such offences and assured parents that vetting and supervision procedures would be reviewed and tightened.