Ruff and tumble at Crufts!
Three banned for brawling and throwing chairs after a judge is accused of bias
EVEN among the pampered, well-bred four-legged competitors, a little snarling is inevitable at the world’s greatest dog show.
But no one was prepared for the unseemly brawl that erupted at Crufts after a bulldog breeder accused one of the judges of being ‘bent’.
Two championship judges and one competitor have now been banned and fined by the Kennel Club for their part in behaviour ‘discreditable to the canine world’.
Passions flared after Billy Goodwin, 65, took offence over competitor Tom Sainsbury’s Facebook post accusing him of ‘the most bent judging I have ever witnessed’.
Mr Goodwin told a Kennel Club disciplinary hearing that it led to an angry fracas at Crufts the next day, with Mr Sainsbury, 39, grabbing his arm and asking him to fight in the car park.
But Mr Sainsbury claimed that Mr Goodwin had told another judge, Sue Garside, 63, ‘he would break Tom Sainsbury’s jaw’ and ‘do her motor’.
So Mrs Garside began ‘chucking chairs’ and kicking Mr Goodwin’s pet dog’s cage while shouting: ‘No one messes with Sue Garside!’, the hearing was told.
The row broke out on March 8, the day after Mr Sainsbury made his Facebook post in reference to the bulldog contest at the National Exhibition Centre in Birmingham.
Mr Goodwin, president of the Bath and West Bulldog Club, said the claim of ‘ bent’ judging was ‘offensive’ and made him nervous about attending Crufts the next day. He told the hearing that when he arrived, Mr Sainsbury ‘grabbed his arm’ and said: ‘Outside, b*****d! I’m gonna do you now.’
Mrs Garside joined in, allegedly tossing chairs aside in front of him before leaning into his face and saying: ‘This is my argument too.’
Mr Goodwin, who said he had cancer, told the hearing: ‘I would never have asked Sainsbury to step outside. I’m a very ill man and any type of infection could kill me.’
He broke down in tears at the hearing, saying he had been sworn at and insulted ‘all day by those two’.
Mr Sainsbury said in a statement that the allegations against him were ‘astonishing’ and that he would not have been that aggressive to a 65-year-old man. He regretted the Facebook post but accused Mr Goodwin of being the aggressor.
Mrs Garside denied getting
‘Extremely threatening’
involved in the spat. She said the trouble started in the car park when Mr Goodwin began threatening Mr Sainsbury.
Later that afternoon, Mr Goodwin walked by her and said he was going to ‘do her motor’, and knocked his cage against her knee, she claimed.
Mrs Garside said: ‘At no time did I kick either him or his cages. I suffer from osteoporosis and in the past year have broken four of my toes on separate occasions.’
The Kennel Club panel ruled that Mr Sainsbury had launched a ‘keyboard attack’ on Mr Goodwin but noted he had apologised for ‘the deep hurt and offence caused’.
It said it was satisfied that Mr Sainsbury made ‘extremely threatening and confrontational approaches’ and was ‘verbally abusive’. But it added that the confrontation ‘was not one-sided’ and that Mr Goodwin made ‘gestures of a physically threatening nature’.
Mrs Garside’s behaviour was described as ‘unacceptable for a championship judge’.
All three, who had denied wrongdoing, were banned from Kennel Club events. Mr Sainsbury was excluded for two years, Mr Goodwin for one and Mrs Garside for six months. Both men were fined £1,000 while Mrs Garside was fined £500.
Mr Goodwin, of Chipping Norton, Oxfordshire, is planning to appeal. Mr Sainsbury, of Worcester Park, Surrey, made no comment, while Mrs Garside, of Grange Leys, Lincolnshire, could not be contacted.