There are loads of tax cheating people walking round as Sirs'. There are dozens of 'entertainers' who life styles shouldn't be held up as good examples but who are walking round as Sirs and Lords. His crime should not reflect his total contribution to the sport.Originally Posted by Desert Orchid
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I would say multiple wrongs shouldn`t make a right (or a Sir!) and in LP`s case he had plenty of "previous" with the taxman for deliberately evading tax but chose to ignore all warnings and carry on evading. Prosecution and prison was a last resort. To "honour" him with a knighthood would, IMHO, have been totally wrong.
He was only prosecuted once, and at the same time a member of the well known brewing family did exactly the same for equally large sums of money and didn't go to prison for it. There are far worse people out there walking round with knighthoods, or who have been made peers. Most of the 'honours' given out are a joke anyway, so maybe it doesn't matter in his case per say, but still a shame in my humble opinion.
Though I recall reading in one bio at least of Lester that lots of top jockeys were suspected to be at it and he was the obvious example to make and that the Inland Revenue got a lot of back taxes from other jockeys soon after.
The Queen clearly forgave him he rode quite a few winners for her especially on Sharp Prod after his comeback.
No amount of wrongs should ever make a right.
And if we didn't have this archaic idea, which could only have been thought up by some kind of pea-brained inbred, of conferring titles on people we might be the better for it.
Two's company, three's allowed.
"pea-brained inbred"
I love your turn of phrase!
"And still they gazed and still the wonder grew. That one small head could carry all he knew."
Ardross is right. After LP`s trial many jockey`s came forward and "voluntarily" informed the Revenue that they had not declared all their income. In Piggot`s case, he had previously been the subject of several Revenue investigations and got away with merely paying interest and penalties on his undeclared income . He had signed certificates several times saying all his income was now declared. Certificates which were blatantly false. The man is a scoundrel.
But a quite brilliant jockey . Piggott insisted that the story that he paid his tax bill with a cheque from an account he had not disclosed was apocryphal but Peter O’Sullevan’s spice was no less than HM herself.
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