Will there be much coverage allowed in the papers? The earlier "mini trial" Fallon had trying to get off the charges was barely mentioned (certainly not in the RP) due to legal reasons. Will this be the same?
Racing on trial as Fallon faces the fight of his life
It has been a roller-coaster ride for Ireland's top flat jockey, but now comes the most critical time of his career, writes John O'Brien
Sunday September 23 2007
Nearly 12 months ago, Kieren Fallon sat in the weigh-room at the Curragh and recalled times past, an age of innocence. Back in the 1980s, he'd been apprenticed at Kevin Prendergast's yard a few hoofbeats away. Charlie Swan was a fellow cub. "That was a good time," Fallon said, "the best of my life. Charlie and me in our flat in Kildare. We never had a worry in the world. We never worried about the taxman, never worried about the mortgage, never worried about anything. We just enjoyed life."
After Prendergast's, they went their separate ways: Swan to a joyful, success-laden career over jumps, Fallon to a turbulent, success-laden career on the flat. The years in England brought wealth and glory but saddled him, too, with cares and anxieties the young apprentice could never have foreseen. Altercations with fellow jockeys, allegations of pulling horses, a battle against alcohol addiction. It has been an extraordinary journey.
And now it enters its most critical phase. Tomorrow the long-awaited trial into charges that Fallon, along with others, conspired to defraud customers of the betting exchange, Betfair, begins at the Central Criminal Court in London and if found guilty, the 42-year-old faces a possible prison sentence and, more certainly, the end of what has been a mercurial riding career.
Fallon was arrested in July last year following Operation Krypton, a two-year police investigation into horse racing that resulted in 40,000 pages of evidence being passed to the Crown Prosecution Service. Specifically, the case against the former champion jockey centres on 18 races in which Fallon is alleged to have passed information onto a betting syndicate headed by Miles Rodgers which used it to lay horses to lose on Betfair. Fallon denies the charges.
Along with Fallon,there are five other defendants: Rodgers, fellow jockeys Fergal Lynch and Darren Williams, Lynch's brother Shaun and a Tamworth barman by the name of Philip Sherkle. But it is Fallon's name that will dominate the headlines and draw cameras and reporters in their droves to the court room.
In a sense, though, it is the entire sport and its credibility that is on show. The belief -- even among those who enjoy a flutter -- that racing and corruption go hand-in-hand is one that has always been hard to shake off. For the last decade in particular, there has been a concerted effort among racing authorities, with the help of the police, to identify fraud, punish the perpetrators and enhance the integrity of the sport and its image.
Following a haphazard start, they appear to be getting on top. Around the same time as Fallon was successfully suing the Sporting Life newspaper for libel in 1998, police were swooping on the homes of a number of jockeys including Jamie Osborne, Dean Gallagher and Leighton Aspell and questioning them in relation to doping and race-fixing allegations. Ultimately, no charges were brought against any of them.
Gradually, though, the investigations have been trawling deeper and some big fish have been netted. Graham Bradley, a former jump jockey, was warned off for eight years in 2002 after admitting in court to passing on information for cash to Brian Wright, a convicted drug baron. On appeal, Bradley's sentence was reduced to five years.
Last year two jockeys, Brian Reilly and Dean Williams, were banned for 18 months for passing information for cash to a bookmaker and this year has brought further casualties. Robert Winston, a highly-rated Dublin-born jockey, was banned for one year after being found guilty of a similar offence. Fellow jockeys Robbie Fitzpatrick and Luke Fletcher were handed three-year bans. Fran Ferris was disqualified for two years.
The case against Fallon must be seen in the context of that 10-year battle against corruption. Put simply, there are those among racing's ruling elite who would welcome a successful prosecution as not only would it offer further evidence that they are winning the war but that nobody -- least of all a multiple champion jockey -- is beneath their radar. The time and money expended during the course of the decade would be more than justified.
But there is deep unease too in racing circles at how the case has proceeded. Should the charges against Fallon be dismissed -- as he and his legal team believe -- then questions will surely be asked of the decision of the Horseracing Regularatry Authority to suspend the jockey after he was charged with conspiracy to defraud in July last year. There are those of the belief that the presumption of innocence until proven otherwise, so central to British justice, was suspended in Fallon's case.
The strength of the case against him is open to question too. It is supposedly based on 18 races in which Fallon is alleged to have passed information to Rodgers. The doubts centre on the fact that Fallon won six of those races and that the betting syndicate suffered a net loss.
If the prosecution accepts, as has been claimed, that Fallon received no monetary reward for the information, then his precise motive has to be established.
None of that clearly absolves Fallon if sufficient evidence is produced against him, but even if the former champion has sometimes been guilty of keeping bad company, that on its own is insufficient grounds to condemn him. Fallon denies any connection with Rodgers and to succeed, the CPS must prove they had a meaningful relationship and shared regular contact.
We should not anticipate quick answers. Fallon's legal team expect the trial to last at least four months and that might be a hopeful forecast. There will be times Fallon will think back to those carefree days of the Eighties and wonder how it came to this but, for now, he must steel himself for the fight of his life.
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