范義龍造馬罪不成立
Former champion jockey Kieren Fallon has walked free from the Old Bailey after the 'race-fix' trial collapsed.
Fallon and five other men including Fergal Lynch and Darren Williams were acquitted by the jury on the direction 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 in the high-profile case.
Fallon, Lynch, Williams, gambler and businessman Miles Rodgers and two other men had been accused of plotting to throw races.
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: "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."
Mr Justice Forbes said the evidence given by the prosecution's sole expert witness contained "significant limitations and shortcomings".
He said that Australian Ray Murrihy had been critical of the riding in 13 of the allegedly fixed races in his witness statement and said there was a prima facie case against the jockeys.
But in court, Mr Murrihy had said "it was not incumbent that I verse myself in UK or other jurisdiction rules".
The judge said in his ruling: "This is an extraordinary admission given that he was purporting to give evidence about 27 races run in the UK according to UK racing rules. In my opinion, that was tantamount to Mr Murrihy disqualifying himself in giving evidence in relation to the suspect races."
[ 本帖最後由 willandgrace 於 8/12/2007 12:33 PM 編輯 ]
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