Vicente Modahl: Ex-Olympic athletics coach accused of child sex offences appears in court

Former British Olympic athletics coach Jose Vicente Leiva-Modahl has appeared in court after being accused of child sex offences.

Leiva-Modahl, 65 – who was previously married to former Olympic middle-distance runner Diane Modahl – is facing 19 separate charges including sexual assault of a child, rape and controlling and coercive behaviour.

Leiva-Modahl, who is also known as Vicente Modahl, appeared from custody at Manchester Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday for a 15-minute hearing in which no pleas were indicated.

District judge Richard Jepson sent the case to Manchester Crown Court, telling Leiva-Modahl that some of the allegations were too serious to be dealt with at the magistrates’ court.

Leiva-Modahl was granted conditional bail ahead of a plea and trial preparation hearing on 18 November.

Among his bail conditions were to reside at an address in the Warrington area, to abide by an electronic monitoring curfew from 21:00 to 07:00 and not to contact witnesses in the case.

He was also ordered to surrender his Spanish passport and not to have any unsupervised contact with anyone under the age of 18.

Leiva-Modahl has been suspended by governing body UK Athletics, the court also heard.

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