Disgraced Cotswolds gymnastics coach finally quits as boss

Debra Courtenay-Crane has formally quit being a director of Bourton Gymnastics Club, a post she had remained in since December 2024, according to official records.

Companies House says she ceased to be a director on Wednesday, March 25.

Sources previously told us that the club is telling parents that Mrs Courtenay-Crane had been “doing admin at Bourton on a voluntary basis”.

Suzy Marshman, director of the club, said in January: “Debra has no involvement at Carterton Gymnastics Club, and she formally resigned from Bourton in November 2025, although to reiterate she never coached or worked from site at Bourton Gymnastics.”

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Bourton Gymnastics Club is a sister site to the one in Carterton, the website says, where records show she remained a director until August 2025.

Mrs Courtenay-Crane was dismissed from coaching gymnastics in July 2025 after British Gymnastics said there were safeguarding concerns found.

She had been chief coach at Carterton Gymnastics Club near Witney, having founded it some three decades ago.

A parent whose child attends the Bourton gym previously told us: “No one from the club has told us anything about Debra’s ‘retirement’ from Carterton.

“It’s clearly concerning that the management seem to think that they can remove Debra from Carterton and continue on at Bourton without acknowledging the situation that transpired with British Gymnastics.”

Debra Courtenay-Crane

Another concerned parent told us: “Surely if you’ve been struck off as you’re a risk to children then you should not be able to open another club that puts you in the same environment.”

One former gymnastics pupil said she felt “humiliated” during her training under Mrs Courtenay-Crane in Carterton in the 2000s aged around three years old until she was nine.

The woman, now aged 25 and asked for anonymity, previously said: “Being shouted at, sat on and humiliated were so normalised that I just thought that’s what competitive gymnastics entailed.

“Even now, as an adult, I experience a lot of anxiety about making mistakes, and I’m not sure I’ll ever fully overcome that.”

Mrs Courtenay-Crane has so far remained silent on the controversies, not responding to our enquiries for a comment.

Mrs Courtenay-Crane, from Oxfordshire, was a decorated coach having received the southern region winner of the BBC Sports Personality Unsung Hero Awards in 2019.

The coach had mentored thousands of young people across well over three decades, while building a successful adult squad in the meantime.