When women and young girls decide to pursue their hobbies, it seems a gang of predators will always follow – we’ve seen it in gymnastics, ice skating and now cries for help are echoing from the equestrian world.
Accusations and real life manifestations of physical, sexual and mental abuse and – in one case – murder, have left officials tasked with ‘cleaning up’ the industry.
Retired PSNI detective James Brannigan, who investigated the killing of showjumper Katie Simpson, said: ‘This is a sector where predators know that these kids, especially girls, will do anything to stay with horses.
‘We know that there are abuses taking place within that industry on a shocking scale because the protections aren’t there. Some of these places haven’t updated their safeguarding policies since 2017. You need a baseline standard and it’s just not there.’
In August 2022, 21-year-old Katie Simpson was battered, raped and strangled by her brother-in-law Jonathan Creswell.
The jockey and horse trainer then pretended she had hanged herself from the bannisters of the home in Northern Ireland she shared with him and her sister, their children and another woman from the horsey set, Rose de Montmorency Wright.
The women were all working with Creswell in a business along with his former girlfriend Jill Robinson.
He was a known abuser, having been convicted and jailed for serious assaults on his ex-girlfriend, Co Down Olympian and dressage rider, Abigail Lyle.
During his trial for Katie’s murder, Creswell could see the odds were stacked against him and decided to take his own life while out on bail.
In August 2022, 21-year-old Katie Simpson (pictured) was battered, raped and strangled by her brother-in-law Jonathan Creswell
During his trial for Katie’s murder, Creswell (pictured outside court) could see the odds were stacked against him and decided to take his own life while out on bail
Former Armagh detective James Brannigan stands with Katie’s aunts Paula Mullan (left) and Colleen McConville (right)
Three women, who had also at some point been in sexual relationships with Creswell, were later given suspended sentences for withholding information from police about the circumstances of Katie’s death.
Her family are now faced with reliving every detail of her torture in an upcoming inquest.
In the meantime, The Katie Pledge, an initiative led by The Katie Trust, is aiming to establish an industry-wide standard for training, vetting and advocacy.
Mr Brannigan is in charge of The Katie Trust and has called for greater protection against sexual misconduct and abuse within the equine industry.
The former detective believes a lack of safeguarding in the industry allowed Creswell to act with impunity.
He said: ‘Creswell was a paedophile. He started relationships with schoolgirls.’
But somehow, this did not stain the jockey’s reputation, as Mr Brannigan claims the local hunt even held a ‘welcome home’ party for him in Armagh when he got out of jail for the ‘brutal’ assault on Ms Lyle.
‘The cases coming through of incidents taking place in the equine industry is shocking. The equine industry is riddled with this,’ he said.
In 2023, champion horse breeder Michael Harold Beattie, 45, was sentenced to four years in prison for grooming and abusing a 15-year-old girl who had been doing daily chores at his stables in Lisburn.
The abuse was discovered when a friend of the victim spotted them kissing in the yard.
Beattie initially denied all charges, but made his 11th hour dock confession to each of the eight charges against him on the first day of his trial at Craigavon Crown Court in May 2023.
The Katie Pledge, an initiative led by The Katie Trust, is aiming to establish an industry-wide standard for training, vetting and advocacy (Pictured: Katie Simpson)
In 2023, champion horse breeder Michael Harold Beattie (pictured), 45, was sentenced to four years in prison for grooming and abusing a 15-year-old girl who had been doing daily chores at his stables in Lisburn
They included six counts of engaging in sexual activity with a child aged 13 to 16 and two of inciting the same child to engage in sexual activity over a time span between 21 December, 2018, and 5 March, 2019.
Jailing Beattie at Craigavon Crown Court, Judge Peter Irvine KC said given the nature of the offences, the breach of trust and the list of aggravating factors, ‘it is clear this case has crossed the custody threshold’.
He was ordered to serve half his sentence in jail and half under supervised licence conditions, and was told he will have to sign the police sex offenders register for the rest of his life. A seven-year Sexual Offences Prevention Order was also put in place.
Beattie was interviewed by police on two occasions, in March and August 2019, but on each occasion – even when text messages were out to him – he maintained the most sexual contact between them had been a ‘kiss on the cheek.’
‘Asked if he was attracted to her, he said he was a married men and claimed that the girl had tried to kiss him the other day and he pushed her away saying he was married,’ prosecuting counsel Ian Tannahill told the court.
There were multiple aggravating features including the breach of trust, the significant age gap, his initiation of the sexual activity and the harm caused to the victim.
Suggesting the relationship was akin to that ‘between a coach and an athlete,’ Mr Tannahill explained that when assessing the level of the breach of trust, ‘the court may take the view that teenage girls who are interested in horses tend to be very interested in everything that goes with horses and in the yard and so on’.
In her victim impact statement, the girl said she now realises Beattie ‘used and abused her’ and believes that she was groomed.
Jailing Beattie, Judge Irvine said he was satisfied Beattie had ‘engaged in a course of grooming’ his victim and that he had made ‘a number of remarks which were clearly designed to appeal to the injured party and in effect, designed to encourage her to take part in this activity.’
‘It is absolutely clear that this activity has had a detrimental effect on not only her mental health but also on her general well being,’ the judge told Beattie, telling him that given the number of aggravating features, he had assessed the defendant’s culpability as high.
In 2024, former jockey Andrew Leigh, 43, was found guilty of historical sexual assaults at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin and jailed for four years.
Leigh, from Moone, Athy, County Kildare, pleaded not guilty to sexual assaults that occurred between March 1996 and June 2005, but was convicted on a number of counts by a jury at the Central Criminal Court on December 18, 2023.
On one occasion, Leigh gave a 12-year-old girl alcohol before laying on top of her and trying to pull her trousers down.
In 2024, former jockey Andrew Leigh (pictured), 43, was found guilty of historical sexual assaults at the Central Criminal Court in Dublin and jailed for four years
Mitchell Hickey (pictured), 25, sexually abused two young victims, hitting one with a whip and coercing a third into sending explicit photos
Another incident on his 21st birthday saw him run his hands across the same girl’s knees and touch her genitals in the back of her father’s car before he was kicked out.
At a junior hunt ball, Leigh kissed a schoolgirl and tried to pull down the straps of her dress before groping her chest.
A further count related to an incident in which Leigh was in the back seat of a car and a young girl was in the front passenger seat.
The girl said he tapped her with his right hand, so she turned to see him pushing his groin forward with his left hand down his trousers, before he reached forward with his left hand and put one of his fingers into her mouth.
In September 2025, a horse-riding instructor was jailed and made the subject of a lifetime Sexual Harm Prevention Order for offences against children.
Mitchell Hickey, 25, sexually abused two young victims, hitting one with a whip, and coercing a third into sending explicit photos.
Hickey, who carried out a string of targeted assaults between 2017 and 2019, also bombarded the girls with indecent videos via Snapchat.
Officers were made aware of the offending in January 2022 when a former member of the riding school, based in the Tunbridge Wells area, became concerned for other vulnerable girls under Hickey’s care.
The riding instructor was arrested and investigated, with officers trawling through his devices.
Hickey was charged with nine sex offences including sexual assault, sexual activity with a child, and sexual communication with a child.
He initially denied the charges, but later pleaded guilty to seven offences at Maidstone Crown Court and was sentenced to three years and four months’ imprisonment at the same court on September 22 last year.
Investigating officer, DC Amy Mulrey, said: ‘Hickey abused his position of power to take advantage of young and vulnerable girls for his own gratification.
‘It is a rare instance in which an offender is made the subject of a lifetime Sexual Harm Prevention Order, which shows the seriousness of Hickey’s offending.
‘He acted with little thought to the impact of his actions on the mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing of his victims.’
In October 2025, horse-riding instructor Guy Simmonds, 37, and his showjumper mistress Lauren Jarvis, 26, were jailed for sexually abusing a girl under the age of 15.
Simmonds, who ran a riding school in the Monmouthshire village of Undy, had sent a text to Jarvis shortly before the incident saying: ‘[The child’s name] there yet? Don’t want to turn up the same time her mum drops her off.’
When Jarvis wrote that the child had ‘literally just walked in’, he replied: ‘I’ll be five minutes.’
In October 2025, horse-riding instructor Guy Simmonds, 37, and his showjumper mistress Lauren Jarvis, 26, were jailed for sexually abusing a girl under the age of 15
Simmonds also took the schoolgirl into a horsebox on a number of occasions and penetrated her in the full knowledge she was underage.
The court heard the abuse culminated in the ‘so-called threesome’.
Judge Lucy Crowther branded Simmonds a ‘sexual predator’ as she jailed him for five years and three months with a further three years on extended licence.
‘I find that you were the ringleader of this and loved the attention of the much younger Lauren Jarvis and the child,’ she said.
‘I find that you were self-obsessed and manipulative and tried to make yourself the victim in this case claiming you were set up and blaming everyone else.
‘I am quite satisfied you are a serious sexual predator and your ability to manipulate, deceive and play people off against each other is quite remarkable and concerning.’
Simmonds was also placed on the sex offenders’ register for life and made subject to a restraining order and sexual harm prevention order for 15 years.
Jarvis, from Newport, received a 12-month prison sentence suspended for a year and was ordered to complete 15 days of rehabilitation work. She was also placed on the sexual offenders register for 10 years and given a restraining order for five years.
These are just some of the vile stories emerging from the dark underbelly of a equine world.
Simmonds (pictured) also took the schoolgirl into a horsebox on a number of occasions and penetrated her in the full knowledge she was underage
Judge Lucy Crowther branded Simmonds (pictured) a ‘sexual predator’ as she jailed him for five years and three months with a further three years on extended licence
Mr Brannigan said: ‘The entire industry needs a clean-up.
‘The Katie Pledge is about changing the culture within the equine industry by providing training and vetting, as well as advocacy for people who are being abused.
‘It stems from the amount of offences taking place and the information being shared with us [The Katie Trust] about what is taking place within the equine industry across the country.
‘We recently gave a talk through Eventing Ireland and we had men and women in that discussing issues that had happened to them within the industry, and about the absence of someone to advocate for them or support them. They want a culture change.’
The aim is for The Katie Pledge to be enforced across equine establishments including training yards, livery yards, pony clubs, dressage and showjumping environments.
It will involve structured safeguarding training, background checks for staff and clear advocacy pathways for reporting criminal behaviour to police.
The initiative has already received backing from Horse Racing Ireland and Eventing Ireland, the national governing body for the Olympic equestrian sport of eventing across the 32 counties of Ireland.
Dora Beacon, of Eventing Ireland’s Northern region, said: ‘The Katie Simpson case has highlighted the fact that people can be very well aware of what is going on in our sport but they aren’t prepared to do anything about it.
‘Whether that’s through fear, whether it’s through to loyalty to these psychopaths or whatever. But we’re trying to break that barrier.
‘I think The Katie Pledge is very, very necessary and we are fully supportive of the efforts being made by The Katie Trust to roll this out.’
Ms Beacon said Katie Simpson case has been a ‘watershed moment’ for the equine industry.
She added: ‘Sadly, the nature of our sport creates an environment that is actually ripe for those sort of offences.
‘The combination of extended hours, secluded locations, individuals working for a large part on their own in an environment where some of these psychopaths exist. These individuals unfortunately feel that they’re untouchable and beyond the law.
‘The tragic case of Katie Simpson has given everyone an insight into the culture and many of us our now determined to clean things up.’
Mr Brannigan has written to Agriculture Minister Martin Heydon, highlighting his concerns and the aim of The Katie Pledge.
He said: ‘We have engaged constructively with Horse Racing Ireland, Eventing Ireland, Dressage Ireland, and other equine bodies operating under the auspices of the Department of Agriculture.
‘We are now asking for ministerial support to assist the governing bodies in delivering the Katie Pledge across the equine industry in Ireland.’
