An English athletics coach and former gold medallist said by media reports to be missing is serving a 10-month prison sentence in Morocco for sexually assaulting a minor, BBC Sport can reveal.

Leon Baptiste, who was coaching a clutch of top British track athletes in the run-up to this summer’s Commonwealth Games and European Championships, suddenly went off the grid more than three months ago.

Neither UK Athletics, for whom he worked as a consultant sprinting coach, nor the sprinters he coached knew why he was out of contact.

In May, Baptiste sent the group of athletes he coached a short message saying he would be absent from training “for a while”. They have been given no further explanation.

Over the weekend, he was reported in the media as being “missing” and was said to have disappeared in Morocco.

On Tuesday, a brief email was sent to the people coached by Baptiste – the 200m gold medallist at the 2010 Commonwealth Games – in which he resigned from the position, citing unspecified ill health.

A source at the Moroccan Ministry of Justice confirmed to BBC Sport that Baptiste was arrested in Marrakech in May, has subsequently been convicted and is now serving a custodial sentence in Al-Oudaya prison.

“In relation to the reports concerning the alleged ‘disappearance of Leon Baptiste’ – an English athletics coach reportedly missing in Morocco for more than two months under questionable circumstances – please note that the information published in this regard is inaccurate and does not reflect the facts of the case,” said the source.