Club five escape disqualification for blackballing

Five Stratford Racing Club committee members have escaped disqualification for illegally blackballing prospective club members.

However, the five have been ordered not to have any involvement in any office-bearing or administrative positions at the club or any other thoroughbred organisation for between two and three years.

A racing judicial tribunal yesterday ordered costs against the five, declining to impose fines because under the club's constitution they would have been indemnified and fines would then have affected other club members.

The five - former New Zealand Thoroughbred Racing board member Murray Blue, 2002 club president Len Caskey, present president James Gilbert, Wayne Hart and Brian Needham - were found guilty in February of acting detrimentally to the interests of racing by the mass blackballing of prospective club members.

The tribunal was told the committee had blackballed 59 candidates for club membership at two meetings in August and September 2002 and had blocked former Stratford District Council chief executive Kemp Broughton's nomination for president of the club.

- NZPA