Former Hockey Player and Coronation Street Actor Faces Trial Over Allegations of Sexual Abuse and Grooming Young Girls on Social Media

A former hockey player who starred in Coronation Street and Hollyoaks raped and sexually abused young girls after grooming them on social media, a court heard.

The ex-Great Britain and Manchester Phoenix hockey star, Philip Hamer, 34, is accused of preying on six different victims, including one as young as 11.

Hamer, who also previously worked as part of the non-playing staff at Manchester City and Manchester United, is said to have attacked his alleged victims multiple times over a decade, between 2010 and 2023. The former TV extra, who has worked on top soaps and other shows including Little Boy Blue and Last Tango in Halifax, is accused of attacking one mother before raping her daughter.

He also made other victims dress in their school uniforms and collected “trophy” images of his sexual abuse, Manchester Crown Court was told today. Hamer has already admitted to having sex with one girl when she was under 16, as well as two others who aren’t part of the trial. Simon Reevell, prosecuting, told the court how Hamer used Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat to contact his alleged victims, most whom were in their early teens.

What was “common” to all his offending, he said, was Hamer’s indifference whether his sexual advances were welcome “as he simply prioritised his sexual desires”. Police first received a complaint about Hamer in 2011 but they widened their investigation in 2023 when other alleged offences came to light.

Hamer approached one alleged victim via Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp when she was 14 and 15 and he was 23, Mr Reevell said. Hamer persuaded her to see him as her “boyfriend” and them being in a “relationship” and he admits they had sex while she was under 16.

It’s claimed he “lost interest” in the girl but contacted her again a few years later for a “catch up” when it’s alleged he raped her twice at his home. Hamer then met an 11-year-old girl via Snapchat when he was 27, Mr Reevell said, after posing as a friend called “Maddison” before revealing himself to be an older man.

He then sent her details from her Instagram account, which she took as a “threat” not to tell her friends they had been chatting. Consequently, he demanded that she send him a series of naked images of herself and took part in FaceTime video calls while wearing her school uniform and performing sexual acts.

Hamer later met up with the girl when she was 13 after school and they went for a drive to a “secluded” spot where they initially watched cartoons on the internet. But it’s alleged he then sexually assaulted and raped her, and did so again when they met up twice more.

It’s alleged Hamer then preyed on a woman’s 15-year-old daughter after boasting about working on Coronation Street and with Manchester City. They exchanged messages on social media and Hamer arranged to meet up with the girl, but it’s alleged he then got her to engage in sexual activity after taking her out in his car.

Hamer “manipulated” the girl so this happened other times, the court heard, and the sexual abuse is also alleged to have included her 15-year-old friend who’d joined them on one car trip. It’s further alleged that Hamer raped the girl once after threatening to “crash” his car on the motorway if they didn’t have sex, and again on a separate occasion.

Mr Reevell said: “The pattern of Mr Hamer’s offending against most of his victims appears to have been to groom them so that they would feel obliged to forgive him for whatever he had done to them, and to trust him not to repeat his previous conduct. Whilst in reality his increasingly demanding sexual requests became the norm. He was able to do this, say the prosecution, via the skillful manipulation of impressionable children.”

Hamer, of Worsley, Salford denies the 22 charges against him. They include eight counts of rape, six counts of causing or inciting a child to engage in sexual activity, four counts of assault by penetration and four counts of sexual assault.

The court heard that Hamer has also admitted to taking voyeurism images of strangers and indecent photographs of children in an unidentified changing room.

The trial continues.