The jury found Harry Redknapp not guilty of tax evasion.
No surprise there. Juries rarely find against celebrities.
Look at O.J. Simpson. Where the jury was mostly black women.
The only big star found guilty was Lester Piggot in 1987.
The Inland Revenue said: Lester, you’re a national treasure, a sporting legend, you’re a friend of the Queen Mother, this whole thing is an embarrassment for us as well as you – just give us some money and we’ll forget all about it.
The great jockey, accepting the logic of that argument, apparently wrote them a cheque for £200,000 or a similar large sum.
Unfortunately, the cheque was drawn on an account the Revenue knew nothing about.
So Lester Piggot went to jail for three years. But he only served 366 days.
Harry’s trial was hilarious.
We knew his QC would be good because he can afford a top barrister.
This case cost taxpayers £8 million!!
The funniest aspect was the main thrust of the defence argument.
They said : It’s all so silly. These are two very rich men – £200,000 is peanuts to these guys. Why would they bother?
The prosecution bungled the case because the relied on The News of the World’s taped recording as primary evidence.They should have asked both men to explain the £189,000 in that foreign tax haven.
Why Monaco? What were the investments?
The prosecution summed up by saying both defendants were either guilty or not guilty. Then the judge contradicted that.
Personally, I found the language of the trial quite bizarre, especially what Harry said when he claimed to be an idiot who can’t run his own financial affairs.
The jury’s verdict came on Wednesday morning after five hours of deliberations which had continued from Tuesday afternoon.
In the afternoon, Fabio Capello resigned from his job as England manager.
Sven was a groupie and Capello a rigid disciplinarian.Both men had always managed clubs but never in England. Neither had ever managed a national team.
The culture shock was huge for Capello and he couldn’t adapt.
He flunked South Africa in 2010 and should have quit then.
But the clueless FA, including Sir Dave Richards, had waived the clause that allowed them to not renew his contract.
Fearing nudity, hearing Juventus wanted Capello, the FA changed that clause because they didn’t want to look like fools if England won the World Cup.
Typical!
A carnival of incompetence and bad judgement.
In four games, he beat Slovenia and drew twice.
Being a hyper-conservative Italian, he didn’t take Joe Hart, the only decent English keeper that season.
England 1 Germany 4 was our worst-ever tournament defeat.
Having seen in South Africa that John Terry was the wrong character to be England captain, Capello kept him on as captain !
And now the Italian has been forced to resign when the FA took the armband off JT.
Capello thinks England are rubbish and he’s wanted to go for some time.
I knew at lunchtime that he was gone and forgot all about it till I got a phone call in the evening.
P.S. I’ve opened an account in Monaco called Sophie47.
It’s named after our tortoise, who is hibernating, so we haven’t told her about the account yet.
Anybody who has a spare £189,000 and loves animals is welcome to deposit cash in that account.
Sophie is about 70 years old but very clever. She always wakes up on St Patrick’s Day.