Dear Dáithí: I was dragged into a witch-hunt — how can I make it right?

I feel consumed by guilt after being drawn into what I now see was a witch hunt against volunteers in my child’s sports club.

Dear Dáithí,

I feel consumed by guilt after being drawn into what I now see was a witch hunt against volunteers in my child’s sports club.

A few years ago, a coach stepped down from my child’s age group and began criticising those who remained. He persuaded me and other parents to lodge complaints, but the club found no wrongdoing.

When the outcome didn’t suit him, he pulled his child out.

This season, he resurfaced, wanting his child back but not under the same coaches. He asked me to help justify another complaint. 

I said my child was happy, but later learned another complaint was made. He then pressured me to join a boycott of training. I gave in. Soon after, the coaches resigned.

Now the club has no structure, my child is losing interest, and I feel responsible for driving away committed volunteers. 

I can’t apologise publicly without causing conflict locally, but keeping quiet is eating away at me.

What should I do?

This type of behaviour drives me mad, as does what you have done too, by the way.

You got one thing right, though. It was a witch hunt, started and driven on by one person who should be ashamed of himself.

Just because he wasn’t getting his way and thought he knew better than everyone else, he decided to leave, which is fine, but tried to bring everyone else down with him and then had the balls to do it all over again.

This person is a narcissist and is to be avoided at all costs.

I feel bad for his own children, who will be looking on at this as normal behaviour.

You have been caught twice now by this person for the same thing; you should have learned your lesson after being bitten the first time, and you shouldn’t have even been caught then! 

You were blindsided here from the start, but I still think there is time for you to make this right.

On the receiving end of all of this are the volunteers. Just look at that word for a second, and please realise how important these people are to our communities and societies.

The whole structure here would fall apart within a week if it wasn’t for them. They don’t get paid, they give up all of their free time for their and your children and for what?

For people like that arsehole to be lodging complaints about them and for you and others to join in when you really didn’t have a problem with them.

Now they have said, feck this I’m out of here, now that the horse has bolted everyone realises what a great and vital asset they have been all along. 

I’m only sorry there wasn’t a group strong enough on the other side to quieten those who were shouting the loudest.

If I were one of those volunteers, I would feel left down and betrayed by what has happened.

You might think I’m laying it on thick here, but I’m only telling you the truth. However, you can — even at this point — do something to redeem yourself. 

Don’t mind this bullshit that you can’t apologise publicly in case you might upset people locally, you have already upset people locally, ‘THE VOLUNTEERS’. 

That’s exactly what you need to do to make this right for you and most importantly YOU NEED TO APOLOGISE to the volunteers who have been hurt by all of this.

By doing so, you’ll send out a message to the person who started all of this that his actions are way of line with your real values and that you are ashamed by the way you were influenced by others.

That’s how you are going to make this right, and we need to go and meet with the volunteers face to face and explain what happened.

If you want go and talk to other people who were talked into making a complaint, I bet there are others just like you who feel the same way.

Come together as a group, that might be less embarrassing for you and would also pack a more powerful punch. 

Sitting back and doing nothing is certainly not an option here; if you do that, you’ll have the awful feeling stay with you, for that to go away you must do something about it.

You say you feel responsible for this, and, yes, you played your part in it, but you can now be the person to make this right. 

This does simply come down to being right and wrong, and what happened was very wrong on so many levels, so make it right!

It does take courage to be that person to step forward and admit you are wrong, especially in public, and how you do that is up to you. 

You could go and meet the volunteers first, and when you put something up on the WhatsApp group, whatever you want, but I do think there has to be some element of this being known publicly, otherwise it won’t really do what needs to be done.

We need people to know that these volunteers were doing their best and certainly didn’t do anything wrong, then you might even get the good ones to go back coaching, that’s if they haven’t been too burnt by all of this.

I think if you were strong enough to write in here to me, you’ll be strong enough to finish this out.

It’s very important you do this for the volunteers, the community, and for yourself.

You’ll have no peace of mind, I think, until you sort it out, it’s like acid in the hull of a boat; it might eventually sink you.

Don’t forget to explain this to your own children; I’m sure they have been asking what happened. They really liked it, remember!

You have a lot on your plate, and I really do wish you well. Be strong, be the person you weren’t when all of this started!