Former England footballer Andy Carroll has publicly identified the man who sexually assaulted him, after his name appeared in court documents.
Carroll, 37, says Kevin Adams, a dance coach on the BBC talent show Fame Academy in 2002, attacked him while he was asleep at home.
Adams, now 59, was convicted at Chelmsford Crown Court in 2023 and jailed for 20 months.
The former Liverpool and Newcastle striker had not named Adams when he first revealed the assault in his autobiography, Owning It: In My Own Words.
He said only a few people close to him knew what had happened before the book was published.
After Adams was named in court filings, Carroll confirmed his identity to The Sun on Sunday.
He said: “Now that Kevin Adams has been named in court documents as my abuser, I can confirm it.
“Hopefully now I can finally start to put this chapter behind me.”
Carroll also asked people not to circulate photographs of the pair together, saying he did not want to be confronted with reminders of the assault whenever the story was discussed.
Kevin Adams was once a coach on BBC’s Fame Academy
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“I don’t want to keep seeing his face or being reminded of him every time this story is spoken about. I’m ready to move forward. This had a devastating impact on my life and loved ones,” he said.
Adams has since made his social media accounts private.
Carroll gave evidence at Adams’s trial, a process he described as “humiliating and horrendous”.
The court heard Adams claimed he had been attacked without cause after Carroll woke during the assault and knocked him unconscious.
Judge Mary Loram rejected Adams’s account, accusing him of portraying himself as the victim.
Andy Carroll enjoyed a great career in football and represented England on nine occasions
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She said: “You spun a literally incredible tale in which you painted yourself as the victim.
“In your narrative, you were the put-upon reluctant friend doing no more than helping out.
“The end of your unbelievable tale was that you were the victim of the most serious sexual assaults yourself.
“However incredible your account, it seems to me that you’ve actually started to believe your own lies.”
She added she could see “no realistic prospect of rehabilitation” in Adams’s case.
He was also placed on the sex offenders register and banned from Carroll’s village.
In his memoir, Carroll described the assault as something he would “quite like to forget but can’t”.
He said he had decided only at the last minute to include it, after spending a long time discussing the decision with his partner, Lou Teasdale.
“I was sexually assaulted; there I said it. Scary to even think about, and only a few people knew about it before now,” he wrote.
Carroll recounted that Adams had often invited him and his former partner out and had bought him clothes.
Andy Carroll is currently player-manager of Dagenham and Redbridge
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On the night of the assault, Adams texted to ask if he could come over to watch boxing.
Carroll later began feeling light-headed after Adams had been mixing drinks in the kitchen.
Carroll said he offered to call Adams a taxi, but Adams insisted on staying in the spare room.
He wrote: “I sleep naked, and when I wake up, this guy is under the duvet.”
Carroll said he ordered Adams out and hit him, knocking him to the floor.
Police arrived after Adams regained consciousness, and Carroll said both men were taken to the station.
The footballer said the assault had affected every part of his life and that he now thought about it every day, making it difficult to focus, even on football.
“The trauma of what happened to me hasn’t gone away,” he wrote.