Thread by @CCCBuryStEd

On Wednesday 10 November 1998 #geoffreyboycott was found guilty of assault for a 2nd time when a French judge decided he had brutally attacked Margaret Moore in an Antibes hotel two years previously.

He was fined £5,300 and given a 3 month suspended jail sentence.
THREAD

He immediately appealed against the conviction.

"In the view of the way the trial was conducted," he said, "I suppose it is not a total surprise."

The proceedings in the court Grasse were described as chaotic and almost out of control. Many of the 13 defence witnesses flown by Boycott to the south of France - at a cost estimated to have topped £200,000 - appeared to have nothing directly relevant to say.

Boycott and his lawyer presented hours of muddled evidence from, among others, a psychiatrist who had never met the victim, Margaret Moore.
He judged her, from television clips and conversations with a former husband, to be a "hysterical psychopath".

Three British women also travelled to France at Boycott's expense to say they had suffered similar injuries to Ms Moore - two black eyes, severe bruising on the face - just by falling over in the street or at home. If it was a circus, it was mostly a circus of Boycott's making.

Judge Haumant-Daumas delivered the same judgment as another judge who conducted the original, ten-minute trial in January.

The first trial was set aside because Boycott failed to turn up, saying he had a more important engagement commentating on Test matches in South Africa.

In a 7 page statement, Judge Haumant- Daumas made it clear that Boycott's behaviour in court - telling Ms Moore's lawyer to "shut up" at one stage - had counted against him.

“In court, the accused didn't hesitate to interrupt rudely Mrs Moore's lawyer, tarnishing the image of the perfect gentleman which he brought his old friends & witnesses to testify to."
The Judge said evidence "did not support the theory of an accidental fall".

Boycott couldn’t be in court but the mother of his daughter was.
She helped compile evidence from several witnesses who said they had suffered two black eyes after falling and receiving a single blow to the side of their heads.

Rachael, who went on to marry Boycott, says that the blood can track right across the face in such cases, making the injury look far worse than it is.

As Margaret Moore spoke outside the court, the Irish Times reported that Rachel Swinglehurst, the mother of Boycott's 10-year-old daughter, stood behind Ms Moore as she spoke to members of the British press.