OSBORNE OFFERED £20,000 TO STOP HORSES, COURT TOLD Jamie Osborne was offered £20,000 to stop horses at the Cheltenham Festival, it was alleged in court today. Former jockey Osborne, now a Flat race trainer, turned down the bribe which was made when he was 19, a jury at the Old Bailey was told. The allegations were made by private investigator Robert Harrington, 58, who is accused of trying to extort £500 from Osborne. He told detectives in tapes played in court: "Osborne told me he had been offered a £20,000 bribe to pull up horses. "It just seems strange to me that there is a jockey that is asked to pull up favourites at the Cheltenham Festival and now he is making an allegation that I've had a deception of five hundred quid. I mean ... it's laughable." Harrington, 58, a former Thames Valley police constable, later told police he was trying to get to the bottom of a doping scandal. He has pleaded not guilty to trying to obtain the money from Osborne by deception, and to a second charge of corruption in trying to obtain £2,000 from him in order to bribe a policeman. Osborne, 32, is due to be called to give evidence in the case next week. The prosecution has told the court that Osborne was arrested, along with other jockeys, in 1998 as part of a wide-ranging horse doping and bets fixing scandal Sir John Nutting QC, prosecuting, told the court that Osborne was never charged but, during the period, was approached by Harrington who allegedly tried to get money from him by pretending to be able to influence police officers. Osborne went to Scotland Yard and was instructed what to do while his conversations with Harrington were recorded along with a meeting at his Lambourn cottage which was secretly filmed by police. After his arrest in August 1998, Harrington was taken to Belgravia police station, central London, and interviewed by officers of the Criminal Investigation Bureau. In the tapes played in court Harrington said: "Osborne was clearly trying to entrap me and lead me on. He was doing all the running. "I was trying in a genuine and honest way to obtain information." Asked why he had told Osborne that he had a "financial option" out of the police inquiry, Harrington said: "That was a means of testing Osborne to see whether he was guilty. "I needed to know that Osborne was a crooked jockey for a number of reasons. It was important for me to know that Osborne was crooked and as that suggestion was put to him, he grasped it. "I've never known innocent people want to try to bribe their way out of something they haven't done. "If he was innocent, why would he want to seize upon that option. It is Osborne that has entrapped me quite clearly and that is what will come out." The case was adjourned until Monday.
