PL charge City for alleged breaches of financial rules

[BerkshireBlue]

The short answer is that this was before the Food Safety Act 1990, which introduced the ‘due diligence and all reasonable precautions’ defence. Yes, this was a formal prosecution by the local authority, though the prosecution was led by a QC rather than an environmental health officer as sometimes happened. X-ray machines were available in those days but not commonly used.
In those days public analysts’ findings were rarely challenged in magistrates’ courts and whilst this one was, in my view, a bit of a cowboy.

You mention that insects etc can be tested to see whether they have been cooked or not. Many years before this the Research Association had suggested the use of the alkaline phosphate test (normally used to check adequate milk pasteurisation) for insects. It probably wasn’t as well tailored to insects but gave a reasonable result. I encountered this same public analyst in another case where he was using the test to see whether burgers had been properly cooked. It appeared that the alkaline phosphate in muscle was slightly more heat resistant than that in milk and that an acid phosphatase test would have been more appropriate. The company involved were a bit obsessed with not over cooking their burgers. However in his evidence the public analyst suggested that 450 degrees centigrade would be an appropriate temperature to cook burgers to. He later denied saying this under cross examination, until the clerk read out what he had said. In this case the complainant, who claimed it made him sick within minutes, was a police officer who had been turned down for a franchise with the defending company. The company were still found guilty. But this was when e.coli 157 was much in the news……

To return to the relevance to this thread, I was making the case that you can have the best factual evidence in the world but sometimes there are other factors that come into play - media pressure for example.

What has this got to do with anything? Launch another thread on food standards if you want

 

[lancs blue]

What the fuck have I just read

Not sure myself, but it's put me right off sausages.

 

[feedmpenzaandhewillscore]

Did Pep say he already knows what will happen? As in the groundwork is now being done for how this will play out?

Or he knows the conclusion is about to happen? Either way this is done. No way can he sit there with this approach without having the inside line.

The media and the league have blown this out of all proportion. We have explained how the money was paid to ethiad and that’s that fuck off now and put a nice blue bow on our next title win -:)

Questions need to be asked when this reaches its conclusion why the Premier League has wasted 4 and a half years pursuing this if it ends up with City winning this hearing. The money spent on lawyers and various legal people when it could have been spent on struggling teams lower down the pyramid.

They’ve desperately tried to throw as much shit at the wall and put as many years as possible into being investigated with how they’ve framed up these charges. Maybe if they concentrated on one aspect they could have been successful in landing something. Instead they have desperately poured over accounts that are 15 years old, in what other industry does that happen?

 

[Keeper!]

What the fuck have I just read

 

[SilverFox2]

Sky Sports have just interviews John Cross (The Mirror) & Jack Rosser (The Sun) about our 115 charges (via video link in front of a bookcase their spare bedrooms)!

Apparently they both think that the 115 charges, might effect us this season!

We didn't loose a league game after they charged us in Feb 2023, we won 5 trophies, started work on a new stand with a hotel for turnstiles, then became the first team to ever win four English titles in a row!

Haaland needs 26 goals this season to get to 115!

Of course it will affect us but not in the way they suggest.

Club, players, fans and management will all make sure we get another treble.
The PL, it's management, and the media have no idea of how threats of this sort stimulate and unite us.

 

[halfcenturyup]

Good post.

The answer about what the emails are actually doing has always struck me as fairly obvious.

The businesses belong to quite a tight social network of related owners so they need to be super careful about documenting everything.

In much the same way as it's always struck me as quite silly that if you wanted to get money into a club and you are so rich you and your family own a whole swath of companies you would just legally have those companies sponsor your club at the top of the end of the market, with a fair bit of advantage to the companies themselves, rather than illegally using those companies to funnel money into the club from your own pocket.

Only thees.

The proposition that Mansour had to provide Etihad with funds to pay a fair market value sponsorship is just ridiculous when you stop to think about it.

 

[waspish]

So is that the last time they ask pep about the 115 fake charges!?

 

[Kinkys Left Foot]

The short answer is that this was before the Food Safety Act 1990, which introduced the ‘due diligence and all reasonable precautions’ defence. Yes, this was a formal prosecution by the local authority, though the prosecution was led by a QC rather than an environmental health officer as sometimes happened. X-ray machines were available in those days but not commonly used.
In those days public analysts’ findings were rarely challenged in magistrates’ courts and whilst this one was, in my view, a bit of a cowboy.

You mention that insects etc can be tested to see whether they have been cooked or not. Many years before this the Research Association had suggested the use of the alkaline phosphate test (normally used to check adequate milk pasteurisation) for insects. It probably wasn’t as well tailored to insects but gave a reasonable result. I encountered this same public analyst in another case where he was using the test to see whether burgers had been properly cooked. It appeared that the alkaline phosphate in muscle was slightly more heat resistant than that in milk and that an acid phosphatase test would have been more appropriate. The company involved were a bit obsessed with not over cooking their burgers. However in his evidence the public analyst suggested that 450 degrees centigrade would be an appropriate temperature to cook burgers to. He later denied saying this under cross examination, until the clerk read out what he had said. In this case the complainant, who claimed it made him sick within minutes, was a police officer who had been turned down for a franchise with the defending company. The company were still found guilty. But this was when e.coli 157 was much in the news……

To return to the relevance to this thread, I was making the case that you can have the best factual evidence in the world but sometimes there are other factors that come into play - media pressure for example.

Ah case makes much more sense now.

I agree fully regarding factors in cases mostly District or Crown Court judges in cases I've dealt with. Let's hope this particular case goes as straightforward as we hope.

 

[Bollo]

What the fuck have I just read

The plot of Netflix’s next hit detective show, that’s what!

 

[mimicmickmickdoyle]

I have appeared as an expert witness quite a few times in a past life, albeit always at magistrate / sheriff court level and in connection with food quality / contamination issues. My view is that flipping a coin would probably give a more accurate judgement. I was normally asked to appear by a food company although at times I did warn them that sometimes my evidence might not be to their advantage but I would have to give it as I saw it.

Anyhow let me give you an example of a case where I thought that there was a cut and dried ‘not guilty’ verdict coming.

The case involve a metal bolt in a sausage. By the time I got the evidence it had been mauled by a public analyst. However it was clear that the sausage had been cut along its length and the bold was more or less central and the head had been approximately flush with the plane of the cut with the shaft of the bolt at right angles to the length of the sausage. That in itself is unlikely. We put some bolts of the same size and shape through the sausage filler at the Research Association where I worked, and admittedly with a small sample size, they tended to go through into the sausage with the head leading the way and with the shaft following at an angle of about 30 degrees. The head normally went towards the outside of the sausage. This would be expected as the sausage meat would tend to push the head forward with the shaft following. I analysed the metal that the bolt was made of and found it to be cadmium plated, such bolts would not be allowed in food machinery. The bolt was a good match for bolts used in telephone exchanges at the time.

The public analyst had reported that as he pulled the bolt out of the sausage with tweezers the force require was such that it indicated that the bolt had been cooked inside the sausage rather than being pushed in afterwards. We cooked bolts in sausages, pushed bolts into sausages and screwed bolts into sausages and measures the force required to pull them out with an Instron and found no difference between the force required pull out the bolt between that which had been cooked in the sausage and that which had been pushed in and a very small,increase in the force required to remove the bolt that had been screwed into the cooked sausage.

My colleague, a meat technologist, carried out a factory inspection and found no bolts resembling those found in the sausage (though he didn’t go 30’ up to the roof to inspect the sheilded fluorescent light fitting). The metal detector consistently rejected a pack of sausages with the bolt inside one of the sausages and the factory records showed that the metal detector was functioning correctly and had been checked as required on the day the sausage had been manufactured.

In my view we had assembled irrefutable evidence that the bolt had not got into the sausage in the factory. Certainly enough to to raise reasonable doubt that it had been the result of a factory incident.

At the court case the complainant who was a telecom engineer working in an exchange gave evidence. He was a middle aged slightly below average height and slightly above average weight for his height, bespectacled and balding. Asked for his account of how the bolt had been discovered he responded “I was making supper for my disabled wife……..”. At this point I thought that simply because the alternative to it being a factory incident was, effectively, to accuse him of deliberately putting the bolt into the sausage that the magistrate would find it easier to find the company guilty, which he did. Perhaps the under threat Scottish “not proven” verdict (which was in my view the most appropriate verdict in many of the cases I was involved in) would have provided an escape route for the magistrate.

That was a bolt from the blue.

 

[dadnlad]

So is that the last time they ask pep about the 115 fake charges!?

It's only just starting wait till September

 

[WRicko]

Did Pep say he already knows what will happen? As in the groundwork is now being done for how this will play out?

Or he knows the conclusion is about to happen? Either way this is done. No way can he sit there with this approach without having the inside line.

The media and the league have blown this out of all proportion. We have explained how the money was paid to ethiad and that’s that fuck off now and put a nice blue bow on our next title win -:)

I don’t think he is saying the answer is known

 

[Matt.D]

I don’t think he is saying the answer is known

This is my interpretation too. I think the quotes can’t be read too much into because his English is not perfect. If you read them literally, although he doesn’t sound worried about anything major, to me it sounds on 2 occasions like he’s expecting us to get some sort of punishment (potentially non cooperation) hence talking about the club accepting it x 2.

Obviously, the club aren’t accepting any serious sporting sanctions without an appeal. But they’d probably “accept” a fine for non cooperation if not guilty of the rest.

 

[the plasterer]

As I don't understand any of this nonsense, is it possible to found guilty for example say 50 charges & innocent on 65??, or basically it's 115 or 0??

 

[No1 was Colin bell]

Only thees.

The proposition that Mansour had to provide Etihad with funds to pay a fair market value sponsorship is just ridiculous when you stop to think about it.

True. One small aspect still causes me a touch of concern. CAS did clear us, great, but as those still circling snidely point out some of that was because some issues became time expired. Unlike in this open ended prem witch hunt. Am happy to be corrected.

 

[Cassandra]

What has this got to do with anything? Launch another thread on food standards if you want

OK, the thread starts by quoting slbsn saying no one should be certain about the outcome of any legal case …….

City claim to have irrefutable evidence to support their case …… I believe them ….

I give an example of a case I was involved in where I thought (and still do) that the evidence in favour of the defence was irrefutable but for probably emotional / humane reasons the magistrate gave a verdict that defied the facts of the case.

After some questioning by Kinkys Left Foot I give an example of another case where I think the prominence of media attention may have swayed the verdict, despite evidence to the contrary.

The details may be complex but I think the message in relation to City’s position and this thread is fairly clear.

 

[Centurions]

Has anything happened on this since the FA Cup Final?

The 2023 one? Don't think so.

 

[Gone for a Burton]

This is my interpretation too. I think the quotes can’t be read too much into because his English is not perfect. If you read them literally, although he doesn’t sound worried about anything major, to me it sounds on 2 occasions like he’s expecting us to get some sort of punishment (potentially non cooperation) hence talking about the club accepting it x 2.

Obviously, the club aren’t accepting any serious sporting sanctions without an appeal. But they’d probably “accept” a fine for non cooperation if not guilty of the rest.

"Once and for all"

A conditional 'sanction' for the record, based on a technicality,accompanied by explanatory narrative written by the club/Pannick.

Khaldoon (City) don't want any lack of clarity, uncertainty or opportunity for malicious misunderstanding at the end of this process.

"Once and for all"

Moving on to the the day that we're are cleared of all material charges -:

Let's have a huge turn out at the ground and round town.....the 115 party.

Fireworks,flares,smokies,klaxons,burning effigies of Masters & Gill, face masks of Khaldoon, cavalcades of cars blocking Deansgate and Gt Ancoats St....a right fucking day and night piss up & shimozle.

Apart from that I'm not really bothered !!

 

[Centurions]

As I don't understand any of this nonsense, is it possible to found guilty for example say 50 charges & innocent on 65??, or basically it's 115 or 0??

It's in effect 5(?) charges and being found guilty on 1 charge out of the 115 plus can automatically mean being found guilty on multiple others as they're spread over multiple seasons. So it could be any combination out of the 5 categories.

 

[Gone for a Burton]

"Once and for all"

A conditional 'sanction' for the record, based on a technicality,accompanied by explanatory narrative written by the club/Pannick.

Khaldoon (City) don't want any lack of clarity, uncertainty or opportunity for malicious misunderstanding at the end of this process.

"Once and for all"

Moving on to the the day that we're are cleared of all material charges -:

Let's have a huge turn out at the ground and round town.....the 115 party.

Fireworks,flares,smokies,klaxons,burning effigies of Masters & Gill, face masks of Khaldoon, cavalcades of cars blocking Deansgate and Gt Ancoats St....a right fucking day and night piss up & shimozle.

Apart from that I'm not really bothered !!

Oh....I forgot to include camel rides and falconry displays sponsored by ETIHAD AIRWAYS.