Fallon case thrown out

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 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.

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."