Racing: No regrets from BBC over Phipps resignation

The resignation of Jeremy Phipps as the Jockey Club's chief of security has done little to placate Stephen Scott, the producer of the Panorama investigative programme "The Corruption of Racing", who believes the responsibility for racing's ills should be more widely shouldered. "It is wrong that a man who had been in the job for only seven months should be a scapegoat," he said yesterday.

It was remarks made by Phipps during what he believed was a private conversation with his predecessor, Roger Buffham, covertly recorded by Scott's team, which forced the former SAS man to offer his resignation. Asked yesterday whether he had any regrets about making the recording that has ended Phipps's career, Scott said: "None whatever. The decision to secretly record the meeting was taken with proper reference to BBC strictures and guidelines which govern such matters, as was the decision to broadcast it.

"Phipps wasn't in the post for the vast bulk of the period investigated by the programme. The problems of racing are on-going. He worked for a man in Christopher Foster [the executive director], who has been at the Jockey Club for many years, for an experienced Senior Steward in Christopher Spence and an experienced PR man in John Maxse. All of those people should answer questions about how the Jockey Club has been regulated over a vast number of years."

Buffham's willingness to step outside his role at the Jockey Club predates providing Panorama with files taken from the Jockey Club after his sacking last August according to Scott. "In 1997, I was at ITV working on The Cook Report," Scott said. "At that stage Roger Buffham, seeing corruption wasn't going to be tackled by the Jockey Club, saw the media as an outlet. He was surprised at the scale of corruption in racing but was trying to move a mountain in getting the Jockey Club to regulate with enthusiasm."

The Buffham/Scott view of the Jockey Club's willingness to tackle ever-changing threats to racing's integrity is one that was challenged again yesterday by John Maxse, the Jockey Club's public relations director. Pointing to the appointment in June of two highly qualified people to the Club's Integrity Review Committee, Maxse said: "We added to the committee, two very experienced independent people, one ex-Chief Constable in Ben Gunn and a criminal QC in Jeremy Gompertz.

"They are looking at a number of areas, but these include the introduction of CCTV in weighing-rooms and the use of mobile phones in jockeys' changing rooms. We know some jockeys in the past have used them to pass on information.

"We have also studied the transcripts of the [drugs] trials and the references to individuals within racing and have written to the jockeys and trainers who were referred to. We know Brian Wright knew or mixed with a wide range of people and one of the things Panorama and Roger Buffham may be guilty of was confusing an association with a presumption of guilt."

The Jockey Club are to meet on Monday to begin the process of finding a suitable and, perhaps more pertinently, willing replacement for Phipps. One man who does want to be considered is William Hill's combative chairman, John Brown, who had been touted for the role. "Why would I leave William Hill to do a job like that?" he said. "I've retired, which means I don't want to work full time. If I wanted to work full time I wouldn't retire."