https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cycling/50387501

It’s all kicking off Pru!

It’s times like these when I think cases like this ought to be held behind closed doors…

Seems free and easy compared to proper court. Freeman’s brief saying she had some random witness to Sutton injecting, but not producing them (according to BBC). No wonder he lost it.

It’s times like these when I think cases like this ought to be held behind closed doors…

Totally agree with this, the press should report on the outcome, not the process!

Reading the report he appears to be taking an Armstrong approach – stating how many tests he has had and not failed – instantly makes him sound guilty.

Does look like it should be done behind closed doors.

Also, the irony of a body (GMC) that will censure or even strike off a doctor for breaches of patient confidentiality allowing one to blab about Shane Sutton’s alleged erectile dysfunction in a public hearing.

Excellent stuff, he’s (Sutton) proving all those allegations about him were true.

I hope he comes back for more.

Quite. The GMC is peculiar; you can be struck off for having a brusque bedside manner or publishing academic research people don’t like, but receive no sanction for sexually abusing your patients or giving the records of 1.6 million patients to Google.

Mr Sutton was a witness, so if you think he’s being made to look guilty then his contempt for the process would appear justified.

Yes these things should be private, along with police and teacher (and probably others) misconduct hearings.

In a public session before Sutton gave evidence, Miss O’Rourke said the defence’s case is that Sutton is a “habitual and serial liar” as well and “a doper, with a doping history”.

After that I wouldn’t have given evidence, just gone home.

Freeman behind a screen?

Will we actually find out who was cheating ?

The GMC is peculiar

MPTS, surely?

/pedantry

Yes these things should be private, along with police and teacher (and probably others) misconduct hearings.

Yeah, nothing for us poor little plebs to be concerned about, let them just brush it all under the carpet behind closed doors.

you can be struck off for [   ] publishing academic research people don’t like

..such as?

After that I wouldn’t have given evidence, just gone home.

Poor Shane 🙁

He might be a Grade A weapon but he’s not on trial, merely a witness. I can understand why the defence would wish to discredit him professionally, but to air his private life in public is going too far I think. It’s no wonder he’s angry.

Nurses disciplinary is held behind closed doors but transcripts are published

But Shane isn’t a witness as in a bystander who saw some one run out of a building. He is at the verge of the case. The defence is that Sutton asked the drugs to be offered for himself. Surely true or not the defence have the right to make the claim.

Well they are trying to make him angry enough to spill the beans on actually just who the drugs were for. If not to keep his end up.

He might be a Grade A weapon but he’s not on trial, merely a witness. I can understand why the defence would wish to discredit him professionally, but to air his private life in public is going too far I think.

Agreed, and it’s not as if they’ve produced actual evidence to discredit him. The defence approach to Sutton appears to be:

*Someone else anonymously told us you were injecting testosterone.
*Lots of rumours say you were a doper. Have we got any actual evidence, well no, but that Lance bloke passed every drug test and just look at him!
*There’s a file in the Daily Mail’s secret vault which suggests you told fibs. We can’t get the file, but someone said it was there, so there you go.
*<Loudly in direction of reporters> You can’t get it up, mate!

And this isn’t someone who has made any actual allegations against her client, just someone who has been dragged into Freeman’s latest version of events as to why he had a stackload of testogel land on his desk, and had the temerity to deny it.

I wonder if it is a tactic to try to encourage people who haven’t yet come forward or agreed to give evidence to do so?

Well they are trying to make him angry enough to spill the beans on actually just who the drugs were for. If not to keep his end up.

Fortunately it didn’t work 😉

I wonder if it is a tactic to try to encourage people who haven’t yet come forward or agreed to give evidence to do so?

I think it was more about giving him the stage to demonstrate that he’s an out-of-control bully, which he pretty much did. It’ll be interesting to see what Steve Peters has to say.

I think it was more about giving him the stage to demonstrate that he’s an out-of-control bully, which he pretty much did.

The opposite IMHO. It seemed like he was being bullied, a neutral would probably sympathise with him.

His response to being accused of bullying was to call Freeman ‘spineless’, demand that he look him in the eye and then storm out. But I guess it’s a judgement call. Personally I wouldn’t speak to someone I called a ‘friend’ like that, let alone one with well documented mental health issues.

Fwiw being asked difficult questions isn’t ‘bullying’, it’s being asked difficult questions. I suspect most people would agree that he maybe could have handled it better. Anyway, I guess it’ll all come out in the wash and what you, I, or anyone else thinks won’t make one iota of difference.

It wasn’t for Shane Sutton, the truth will come out eventually and the whole Sky/Inneos thing will be blown apart. It’s their own fault for pretending they are whiter than white.

I was listening to a podcast on drugs cheating the other day and the presenter said two things that stuck with me.

If someone late in there sporting career suddenly has a dramatic improvement, that’s a bigger sign of drug cheating than any biological passport and also there’s always a narrative to explain that performance. He got cancer and changed shape, he lost the weight, we were better a putting more food on the course and he suddenly learned to train better.

podcast

The opposite IMHO. It seemed like he was being bullied, a neutral would probably sympathise with him.

His responses in the Culture, Media & Sport “jiffybag” enquiry were exactly the same. Aggressive, demanding, questioning why that was relevant, evasive, denials.

Again, he wasn’t being bullied, he was simply being asked questions he didn’t want to answer.

” It’ll be interesting to see what Steve Peters has to say.”

“Dr Steve Peters, who was head of medical at British Cycling and Team Sky, told the Sunday Times he and a British Cycling colleague were on site when the package arrived and that they questioned Freeman over it. It was established that the supplier had sent it by mistake and it was returned, something which he had confirmed with Freeman. Peters was, he said, satisfied that it was “an administrative error”.”

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/05/team-sky-doctor-richard-freeman-was-allegedly-sent-banned-testosterone-patches-doping

Sutton came across as a git. Again. Like all the other times he’s has come across as a git. In all the other enquiries and exposés we’ve had. In fact he’s so much of a git he can’t even keep a lid on it for a day when the spotlight wasn’t even meant to be on him. What a Git.

Quite. The GMC is peculiar; you can be struck off for having a brusque bedside manner or publishing academic research people don’t like, 

Examples please

*..such as?”

Prof. Walker-Smith. Decision overturned when the appeal was heard by a grown up judge.

From Jiffy to Stiffy was the best quote I saw. Mary O’Rourke, Freeman’s QC has form in this style of witness treatment.

The bedside manner is Mr Al-Fallouji. There were many other salacious allegations but none that affected patient safety and it isn’t the NPTS’s job – or competence – to prosecute criminal allegations.

That’s a general theme that’s emerged recently; insufficient evidence to prosecute nurses, paramedics, doctors, teachers, police – and sportsmen – through the criminal courts so use a kangaroo court instead.

“Dr Steve Peters, who was head of medical at British Cycling and Team Sky, told the Sunday Times he and a British Cycling colleague were on site when the package arrived and that they questioned Freeman over it. It was established that the supplier had sent it by mistake and it was returned, something which he had confirmed with Freeman. Peters was, he said, satisfied that it was “an administrative error”.”

I meant more in the sense that Peters may well be asked whether he believes that Sutton was a bully and, specifically, whether he believes that he may have bullied Freeman. He’s an interesting guy Steve Peters, very calm, emotionally intelligent. He used to work as a clinical psychologist at Broadmoor, so he knows a bit about odd personality traits, disorders etc.

so use a kangaroo court instead.

Don’t you mean professional standards organisation? You don’t have to be a criminal to breach professional standards.

I quite often read the reports of the nurses disciplinary hearings. Scrupulously fair, quasi legal. No wichhunts

Sutton’s non-denial denial told us all we need to know about his own alleged doping.

His responses on the testosterone were IMO indicative of someone with something to hide – and particularly the text message sent to Freeman: “Be careful what you say, don’t drag me in, you won’t be the only person I can hurt.”

Will we actually find out who was cheating ?

I don’t think so.

PS. Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe the inference is that he didn’t really have erectile problems, and the testosterone was meant for an athlete.

However I don’t think that was asked directly in the proceedings?

Pedant alert – Steve Peters was at Rampton rather than Broadmoor

True.