The BHA and the Police

[NoChanceToDance]

Disgrace.

Absolute disgrace.

They have wasted everyone's time.

Good bye Paul Scotney, Good by the directors of the BHA.

The case has collapsed after much of the evidence was 'left behind'.

The tax payer and racing authorities will have to pay the bill for this court case. I won't be the only one to say that our racing governing bodies are just inept.

As the weeks went on, the police and Jockey Club officials began to change statements and 'notebooks were left behind'

This is going to have serious issues on the running of our racing. Surely there will have to be a major re think from the top.

I have to say that i am gobsmacked that Mile Rodgers was allowed to walk free after the eivdence was found against him.

I must say, i am still pretty sure that some wrong doing has taken place, but the evidence wasn't there in the end. At the start, it all looked very strong but it soon died away.

This doesn't mean that Fallon and co will be allowed to ride in Britain though. Fallon has still broken the rules and will probably have to serve a ban for the rules that have been broken. Don't forget that we currently have jockeys banned for far less serious offences.

It was always going to be a no win situation for racing as a whole whatever the outcome. There are many people (including me) disgusted with the authorities after this. Who are we to trust now? Has it been the authorities that have been at the heart of the corruption?

I will apologise for ever doubting Fallon in this case, the eivdence to begin with looked very strong against him. I still believe there was some wrong doing that took place between these men, but we will never know for sure. I am very surprised Miles Rodgers has walked free though.

That is not to say that he won't be warned off racing.

[NoChanceToDance]

Update:

All jockeys involved in this case will be allowed to ride in Britain.

The BHA/Jockey Club have been made to look like complete fools. How can we trust them ever again?

Really don't know what to say.

[NoChanceToDance]

Fallon case thrown out



by Martin Kelly



SIX-TIME champion jockey Kieren Fallon's race-fixing trial collapsed at the Old Bailey today.

Fallon and five other men were acquitted by an Old Bailey jury on the directions of trial judge Mr Justice Forbes.

He said there was no case to answer following defence submissions at the end of two months of prosecution evidence.

Now Fallon is set to get back in the saddle in big races in Britain following a 17-month suspension imposed after his arrest.

Fallon always denied involvement and his barrister asked the judge: "You have to consider how much it would cost to buy Kieren Fallon."

Fallon, fellow jockeys Fergal Lynch and Darren Williams, gambler and businessman Miles Rodgers and two other men had been accused of plotting to throw races.

But the "fatal flaw" in the £6million case was that no one was able to provethe jockeys had interfered with horses.

The only expert witness called was Australian racing steward Ray Murrihy, who admitted he was not an expert on British horseracing.

The case against the men was that they were trying to break Jockey Club rule 157 by stopping horses racing on their merits.

But Mr Murrihy said he was not familiar with the rules in the UK, was only giving his opinion on the riding and could not say what the outcome of a stewards' inquiry would have been.

The jury also heard that Fallon had a higher win-rate in the races he was allegedly meant to throw than his average.

City of London police, who had been asked to investigate by the Jockey Club, came under constant criticism throughout the case.

It emerged that the then Commissioner of the force had approached a director of the Jockey Club - now the British Horseracing Authority - about more funding for the inquiry, which is thought to have cost around £3million.

And it also emerged that the main detective in the case had been offered a job with the BHA's investigation unit.

The prosecution said there was no evidence that Fallon profited from the alleged scam.

He was said to have ended up owing a betting syndicate money.

The accused were said to have plotted to stop 27 horses winning between December 2002 and August 2004, thereby defrauding Betfair internet customers and other punters.

The prosecution said large amounts of money had been bet on the horses losing after a series ofphone calls and text messages involving the jockeys.

Fallon was said to have ridden in 17 of the allegedly fixed races and won five of them - a higher win rate than his normal average.

The betting syndicate run by Rodgers was said to have wagered£2.1million on horses to lose, making between £60,000 and £143,000.

But Fallon was alleged to have owed the syndicate's backers £338,000 by winning the five races.

Fallon, 42, formerly of Newmarket but now of Tipperary, Ireland, Lynch, 29, of Boroughbridge, North Yorkshire, and Williams, 29, of Leyburn, North Yorkshire, Lynch's driver brother Shaun Lynch, 38, of Belfast, gambler and businessman Rodgers, 38, of Silkstone, South Yorkshire, and barman Philip Sherkle, 42, of Tamworth, Staffordshire, were all cleared on the directions of the judge.

Rodgers was also found not guilty of concealing the proceeds of crime.

All the defendants were on bail.

Fallon's QC, John Kelsey-Fry, had asked the judge to throw out the case against him because the prosecution had failed to "come close" to making a case against the jockey.

He said the races which Fallon lost yielded only small returns for alleged plotters - in one case just £3,000.

He said: "There is simply no case to answer. None of the strands of evidence individually or collectively amount to a case to answer.

"The evidence presented by the prosecution when properly analysed has demonstrated that Kieren Fallon was not a party to a conspiracy to defraud."


* * * * * *

How can we trust the BHA/Jockey Club/Police ever again after this absolute disgrace.

Serious questions to answer from all of those parties now.

I am surprised Miles Rodgers has managed to walk free of charge, however. There did seem to be plenty of evidence against him.

This leaves racing in the gutter. These jockeys will now sue our racing authorities for loss of income, but where will the money come from??? This could be seriously bad for racing in the long run.

A disgrace.

As fans, we put trust into the authorities to keep this sport clean and to be run well. How can we trust them to do this from now on?

The Police were pathetic throughout the whole case.

We will never know what those text messages meant. They were probably to do with horses not trying, but there wasn't enough evidence to prove that they were.

[NoChanceToDance]

The police say they managed to obtain "significant" ecivdence and intelligence for this case.

They are "disappointed" with the judges decision, but "understand" his reasoning. They were disappointed the jury never got the chance to make thier decision after failing to be allowed to see all of the "compelling" evidence that the Police had.

I'm still not really sure what to say on this case.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the people in question did know eachother very well, even when they say they didn't. Phone numbers, text messages, bank account details. So, although they obviously haven't spoken the whole truth in court, the evidence hasn't been strong enough to convict them of any crimes.

The text messages could have read in so many different ways, but the general opinion is that they were incriminating, but because of how they were written (in sort of code) no one apart from the people who sent and recieved them could be 100% sure of what they actually meant.

I have to say that although this case has been thrown out of court, it does NOT prove these people are innocent.

The Ballinger Ridge incident will remain a mystery. The betting patterns that surrounded that horse from the time the market for that race opened are still in question, but whether Fallon's ride had anything to do with those patterns are anyone's guess. Maybe it was just a massive coincidence?

The Police are very much to blame in my opinion. From the moment the case started, it didn't seem like any of the officers involved had any clue about Horse Racing. That was the major downfall.

I find it interesting that Fallon has been given his license back straight away, even though he admitted to breaking many rules set by the BHA. This sets a huge precident to other jockeys. Fallon has basically been let off after using mobile phones in restricted areas, having mobile phones that were not known to the BHA and also discussing private information to people he shouldn't have been speaking to. Lets not forget that other jockeys including Robert Winston and Tony Culhane have been banned for less.

Does this mean that if any jockey is found to be using his/her mobile phone in a restricted area that they will just have to say "well, you let Fallon off, why not me?".

The BHA have basically made a complete mess.

I have to apologise to Brockguy on here after laughing off the post he made about Scotney being out to get Fallon. After today, that could very well be the case.

They seem to have no idea what they have done and how this could affect British racing.

There will be those who will be over the moon that Fallon is now able to walk free, but this goes MUCH deeper than that and those people must understand that. Every jockey in this case now has the right to sue the authorities for loss of income, which will amount to huge sums of money, money which the racing authorities just do not have. This will hurt racing in more ways than people are expecting it to. Money is already an issue in this sport, without the threat of huge amounts of compensation for these jockeys, and the possible percentage of funding for the court case itself (thought to be around £6million).

Then there is the issue of trust. Why should anyone involved in racing trust any BHA decision ever again after this disgrace? Jockeys certainly won't trust anything they say or do.

Tough times for racing at the moment.

Sure, it's brilliant news that Fallon has been allowed to walk free, but i'm looking at the bigger picture and what this could actually do to British racing after the dust settles.

[brockguy]

it shouldnt have been allowed go to court in the first place. as the trail progressed, it looked more and more like a shoddy operation on the prosecutions part.

the text messages (that contained numerous abbreviations that could be interpreted in any number of ways) seemed to be a massive part of the prosecutions trial which in the end was shocking..

it'll be interesting to see the huge fallout of this in the coming days and months.

[brockguy]

also, they get a random Australian steward to agree with their point of view regarding race riding.. Just ridiculous considering how different UK and Aussie racing is.

[NoChanceToDance]

I agree with both posts.

In the first couple of days, the evidence looked strong, but then after there were so many holes that could be seen.

The BHA have been made to look completely stupid, and the Police inept.

A HUGE waste of tax payers money, anything up to £10million is now being said.

I do wonder about the text messages, i think most people think they did hide incriminating evidence, but as you say, nothing could be proved.

I'm just not sure how jockeys, trainers or even owners will be able to trust any decisions the BHA make in future.