Report this week on Fine Cotton

Press, 4 October 1984, Page 30

Report this week on Fine Cotton

NZPA Sydney Stewards investigating the Fine Cotton substitution affair will hand in an interim report to the Australian Jockey Club committee by Friday. The report could recommend that charges be laid against some licensed or other persons if the stewards decide that the evidence they have gathered is strong enough. A panel of three stewards, headed by Mr John Schreck, have interviewed more than 60 witnesses in a probe into betting activities in New South Wales on the Novice Handicap at Brisbane’s Eagle Farm on August 18 when the alleged ring-in occurred.

Yesterday morning Mr Schreck and two stewards, Messrs Norm Swain and Jack Hickman, interviewed the colourful New South Wales punter, lan Murray, known as the “Sunshine Kid,” a Newcastle racegoer, Stephen Laverick, and a Sydney medical practitioner.

Mr Murray was before the stewards for the second time — he spent one hour

and 40 minutes earlier in the inquiry, now in its ninth day, and another 35 minutes yesterday where he explained his betting moves in the Warwick Farm interstate ring on August 18. Mr Laverick misunderstood the stewards’ request’ to attend the Sydney inquiry and turned up at the Newcastle Jockey Club last week.

He told stewards yesterday that he had placed money for his brother on the horse 1 at Newcastle on August 18. The Sydney medical practitioner, who is as yet unnamed, told the stewards that he had recognised the racehorse trainer, Hayden Haitana at a motel near the Randwick Racecourse on the Wednesday after his disappearance from Brisbane after the August 18 race.

The doctor told stewards that he had contacted the consorting squad, which he said would not take his information seriously.

The doctor asked that his name not be revealed and said he had responded to a call by the A.J.C. stewards for help from the public on any matter which could assist them in their inquiries which were looking into aspects of the Fine Cotton matter “contrary to the interests of racing in New South Wales.”