Impossible position if Nikolic returns: RV
Danny Nikolic’s claim that the chief racing umpires are corrupt puts Racing Victoria in an impossible position if he regains his jockey licence, a tribunal has heard.
Nikolic will go to Australia’s highest court to fight a police order banning him from race meetings but RV maintains he still faces other insurmountable hurdles in his bid to be relicensed.
The situation would be unworkable after Nikolic claimed RV integrity services head Dayle Brown and chief steward Terry Bailey were corrupt, RV barrister Jeff Gleeson QC said.
“It is high farce to suggest that a person who maintains the view that the chief regulators are corrupt is a proper person to be licensed,” Gleeson told the Victorian Civil and Administrative Tribunal.
“It puts Racing Victoria in an impossible position because every decision that involves Mr Nikolic will be supercharged with perception of vendetta or going soft.
“The integrity of the sport can’t tolerate it.”
Gleeson said Nikolic had not withdrawn a threat against Bailey’s family.
“One can scarcely think of a more serious behaviour that would preclude a person from being licensed,” he said on Wednesday.
“We’re not operating in some alternative universe here where the passage of a few years cleanses a threat not withdrawn against your family.”
Gleeson said Nikolic had lied in repeatedly denying making the threat.
“He hates Terry Bailey. He thinks he is corrupt.”
Nikolic was outed for two years for threatening Bailey at a September 2012 race meeting before copping a further one-year suspension for offensive conduct towards another steward.
He is separately fighting a police order excluding him from specified racecourses during race meetings.
The Court of Appeal on Friday upheld the Victorian police chief commissioner’s challenge to a decision that overturned the exclusion order.
Nikolic is now seeking special leave to appeal in the High Court.
Gleeson said Nikolic cannot be licensed as a jockey if he is excluded from attending racecourses on race days.
A barrister for Nikolic has previously said he could still ride trackwork and might be able to ride interstate if he regains his jockey licence, even with the police exclusion order in place.
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