LETSGOHORSERACING reproduces the story below, which was written by ARCHIE BUTTERFLY on his much-read, hard-hitting website, itsnotnormalisit, because we believe it needs to be read by every racing stakeholder in Queensland not to mention those who are regular followers of the sport.

If what Archie has written is correct – and we would prefer to believe what he writes about racing in Queensland and the Brisbane Racing Club than the political propaganda served up in The Courier-Mail and The Sunday Mail where the growing consensus of opinion is that they lack the ethics to follow up on many questions that he has raised and officialdom continually refuse to answer.

In the latest disaster for the public relations image of the BRC, Archie reports that a long-serving employee of the BRC – a widow who lost her husband two years ago to cancer – has been sacked after being wrongfully blamed for taking photographs of a recent 70th birthday bash for Chairman Neville Bell at Doomben which were published on his website.

Allegations raised by ‘the Butterfly’, who has fessed up to taking the photographs himself, need to be investigated by our gutless mainstream media, an even more gutless Racing Minister in Grace Grace and an ‘asleep at the wheel’ Queensland Racing Integrity Commission before the industry becomes fully convinced that what is happening at the BRC is acceptable to this bunch of grubs, including those running Racing Queensland.

Here is the story, published by Archie Butterfly. You can read the entire article by logging onto www.itsnotmormalisit.com.  

IT just gets worse in the Brisbane Racing Club Salem Witch Trial Stakes, for I have just been reliably informed that the wrongfully dismissed older employee who BRC management wrongfully mistook for me despite the video evidence available to them and sacked for my presumed sins is a widow who lost her husband 2 years ago after a brave but spirit-sapping 15 year battle with the dreaded Devil’s Dancer.

Now I’ve seen plenty of bad bosses throughout my lifetime – I was a union official for 20 years – and I’ve dealt with hundreds, maybe even thousands, but I can’t say that I’ve seen a boss sack one of their longest serving employees on misguided suspicion before, not without presenting them with a written summary of the allegations being made against them, offering the employee the opportunity to consider the allegations and seek advice from a lawyer or IR/ER professional, and affording them sufficient time and opportunity to respond.

That’s how due process in employment relations matters works, and the BRC’s HR Boss Anthony Ridge – who I know has been working in the employment relations field for as long as I have because I dealt with him back in the late 90’s at the Mackay City Council when Julie Boyd was Mayor and Jeff Harris (who calls himself Stewart-Harris these days) and Bob Bain were his bosses, and I led the workers out on a series of strikes – without any doubt knows it.

So why then did the gutless prick Dave Whimpey sack a sixty-something year old widow who had worked at the club since before he even finished high school (I won’t say University, because I am talking about finishing and graduating, nudge nudge) without following these steps?

Because Nifty Nev Bell, who is NOT the employer of the staff, falsely believed that this poor woman was somehow associated with me and refused to believe her factual denials to the contrary, and demanded that her head must roll.

How to blokes like that sleep at night? What do they do before they put on their PJ’s? Go out and kick the horse and club a few possums to death with a pogo stick?

FFS even if in some deluded world of graft and corruption and vanity and greed you could somehow convince yourself that the old chook who deals drinks off the arm in the members bar was Archie’s number 1 informant – she’d have to be bloody well informed, wouldn’t she? – and was as guilty as sin of taking photos of her girls in full view of dozens of staff and then passing them on to me so that she could pot herself and dive head first into a world of sh*t and blame and pain by getting me to publish them on itsnotnormalisit.com – and you’d have to be pretty f*cked in the head to think a happy veteran worker with no axes to grind would do such a thing – there are still no grounds at all to sack her on the spot.

Summary dismissal they call it when a worker is marched off the premises by security guards and thrown out the front door, and it’s an ignominy reserved for thiefs, bashers, fraudsters, drug addled or drunk at work wastrels, and people who present a safety risk to their fellow workers and others.

None of these apply to a proud old mother hen who took some happy snaps of her team’s handiwork to show off to her friends even if she did somehow pass them on to a stranger she’s never met and who until a few days ago when he heard this story didn’t know she existed.

The worst she would lawfully cop if that scenario was true – and at the risk of boring you, but because the point needs to be hammered home to people walking around with their heads stuck are there arses IT ISN’T – would be a first and final warning.

Yet these brave big shot heroes have hung, drawn, quartered and humiliated a poor widow who’s worked her guts out for them for twenty years, and have done it without a scintilla of evidence to back their deluded preconceived conclusions, because there can be no evidence at all, because I took the bloody photos all by myself with Maggie’s camera.

For God’s sake yesterday I gave myself up by telling you exactly how, when, what, who and why and even providing the plods with my description, details of my car and of my movements, and the locations they need to review the CCTV tapes from so they can see with their own two eyes that what I’ve just told the world is demonstrably and unquestionably true.

Yet despite all this the innocent old bird is still stacked.

Why?

Now they know the truth why don’t Bell and Whimpey undo it?

And why did they do it in the first place?

By their fruits we shall recognise them. Jesus said that, and he was spot on.

So why the witch hunt?

What were Bell and Whimpey so upset about?

What were they – what ARE they – trying to hide?

It’s time to clear the air, because the members of the Brisbane Racing Club have an interest in people being treated fairly, especially long-serving, loyal widows who have lost their husbands to the dreaded Devil’s Dancer and rely on their jobs for income, friendship, a little bit of happiness, and a whole lot of self-esteem.

The members also have an interest – a very strong interest – in knowing that the financial conduct of their elected Board Members and appointed Senior Executives of their racing club is beyond reproach, particularly when these people that they have trusted with stewardship of the collective wealth of the club accumulated over 150 years are spending it as if its their own on projects that are swamping the BRC with such huge debt that a change in the wind in the form of an unexpected recession or interest rate spike could well blow the whole bloody thing down.

It’s time for some straight answers to some simple questions, and here they are:

Who paid for Neville Bell’s 70th Birthday party at Eagle Farm?

When was a costs estimate or quotation for the total price of the function provided to the person intending to pay the bill?

When was the invoice for payment issued?

Were the prices quoted for the Chairman’s party calculated at the standard usual rate applied to events and on the usual commercial terms?

Was the usual charge per head for the hire of the Ascot Room billed? How much was that price per head?

Who paid for the staff that worked at the function?

Who paid for the fancy refit of the room and all the expensive decorations?

Who paid the cost of wages for the folk who did the refit and put all the decorations up?

Who paid for the cleaners afterward?

Were each and every one of the items served on the menu charged at the usual commercial rates?

Were the drinks?

More specifically, what profit margin was applied when pricing the food and drink?

Was the margin charged on the usual retail price of the nosh and grog, or on the cost price? For example, if we pluck a figure out of the sky and imagine that the profit margin for the club and its members was 10%, would this be 10% applied to the usual 70 odd dollar ballpark cost of a bottle of Moet at Dan Murphy’s, or on the substantially reduced wholesale price that the club is able to negotiate by virtue of its volume purchases?

Were any of the food items, or was any of the alcohol consumed at the function, provided by sponsors of the Brisbane Racing Club?

Was any other item or thing?

If yes, on what date were the value of these item or items entered into the club’s register of interests by the person or persons who received them?

Who paid the airfares for guests who attended Nifty’s 70th birthday bash?

Who paid for the guests accommodation in Brisbane?

Who paid for the tickets of partygoers who kicked on to the Australian Horse of the Year Award (AHYA) down the road that night after the party?

Who paid for their cab or limo fares, both from the airport or at any time that they were in Brisbane?

Who paid the food and drinks bill for items consumed by party guests at the AHYA soiree?

Specifically, were any of the costs incurred for travel, accommodation, tickets, food or beverages for the interstate guests JEFFREY KENNETT and WILSON TUCKEY paid for the BRC or any related or subsidiary entity?

Will the Directors and Management of the Brisbane Racing Club demonstrate unequivocally that they have met their fiduciary duty to their shareholders and members as required under company law by providing answers to each and all of these questions and publishing these answers on the BRC’s website so as prove that their dealings have been beyond reproach?

Are they prepared to publish documents with the appropriate redactions as evidence of the veracity of their answers, in the event that the Directors and Management act in accordance with their publicly stated commitment to openness and transparency in all of the club’s dealings?

If not, why not?

The tough guys who run the club have shown the world that they are prepared to march a poor innocent widow out the door without any due process, evidence, reason or cause.

That’s easy.

Any lowlife can exploit women and treat them with disdain as mere disposable chattels, Just look at the form guide, Whimpey’s been doing it for years.

Putting an end to the myriad of highly concerning rumors, damaging speculation and eyebrow raising allegations flying around in racing circles about these issues is easy too.

All the BRC bully boys have to do is simply lay down their cards on the table, answer the questions, prove the naysayers wrong and put the whole thing to bed.

Have they got the guts to do it?

Or have they got a whole lot of things to hide?

Guess we’ll find out one or the other very shortly.

Watch this space.