Telegraph report about Austria

[Roger de Coverly]

The halal food issue I can understand - if the ECF failed to meet their obligations of provision for any special dietary requirements then this needs to be looked at for future events.

Whilst I suspect you are right, there's a chain as to whose problem it is.

If you play in a tournament whether in the UK or abroad, you can find a number of ways of booking it.

The most obvious model is that you enter the tournament and then separately arrange a hotel or equivalent. If the hotel fails to provide special requests promised at booking, you look directly to the hotel for redress.

Sometimes, e2e4 being a possible UK example, you book a package of both the hotel and tournament entry with the tournament organiser. Is the responsibility to meet special requests that of the organiser or the hotel?

Moving on to International events and International Junior events, it's quite normal for the organiser to insist that entry is only possible through the "official package". The complicating feature is that they will also only accept entries from national federations, not directly. So this is where the ECF gets involved, at a couple of stages removed from the hotel.

[Jonathan Bryant]

Just trying to keep the lid on here - the ECF have issued a statement and say they have evidence that backs up their conclusions. If the police become involved (as seems possible) ....

The ECF's 'unfounded' statement is quoted in various places. Is the full statement available on the ECF website? I don't see it.


As for the police, well they are involved since Mr Rahman is in touch with them and there appears to be a campaign encouraging people to contact various police figures about the matter. I remain sceptical about the prospects of events in Austria being investigated by the British police, however. That the initial Telegraph report (14th August) included the following,

Mr Rahman said he has complained to Norfolk Police about what happened in Austria, and an officer is due to take a statement from him today.

certainly suggests that they won't. If the police really wanted to investigate the incident, they'd be talking to somebody who was actually there. Maybe their conversation with Mr Rahman will lead to further action, but I doubt it.



Incidentally, the blog carrying most of the reports about Mr Rahman's claims has edited its posts in various ways over the last couple of days. I thought that it had originally named two children who were involved in some way in the claims of bullying. I might be wrong about that, though.

[John Swain]

The ECF's statement was cited on their Twitter account and can be seen in full on Facebook. I don't think it has yet reached their website.

Correction: this was the situation last night; the statement is now on the website too.

[Jonathan Bryant]

this was the situation last night; the statement is now on the website too.

Ah, thanks. I'd checked a little earlier this morning. Must have missed it by a few minutes.

[Richard Bates]

"Failure to provide halal food" could actually just mean "failure to provide halal food that they like". Which is hardly a religious objection, but just an inevitable outcome of giving yourself a restricted choice in the first place. I once went on a Junior trip where i barely ate more than a few biscuits for an entire week so unappetising did i find the food. Perhaps i should have complained a bit more at the time. Another time when i was really young our hosts discovered, after a bit of trial and error, that we were happy to eat pancakes. When we'd had them for several days in a row the prospect became less appealing.

[Kevin Thurlow]

"The police the authority's encourage all people to come forward if they witness racist actions/words and the CPS have a policy quite rightly of where possible taking people to court over racist behavior."

That's three times you've said that and omitted the word "sometimes".

On the actual dispute, we can expect this one to run and run.

If the accusation about drinking alcohol when teaching children is correct, that needs to be sorted out. School teachers I know would never drink alcohol or smoke when on duty or where the children in their care would see them.

[Andrew Varney]

Good to see that the report is out and finds the allegations unfounded.
Knowing the family that was accused, I found it very hard to believe that the allegations were true, but held back from speculating on this since I was not there in person. From my experience at other tournaments in this country, the family is of gentle persuasion and among the quietest and calmest I know within the junior chess community.

[Geoff Chandler]

All credit to the ECF for acting quickly on this matter
and releasing a statement.

A complaint has been raised and the police may or may not investigate
but the boards prompt actions has I think steered chess away from a
very awkward moment.
What happens now regarding this matter has nothing to do with the game.

[Peter D Williams]

Good to see that the report is out and finds the allegations unfounded.
Knowing the family that was accused, I found it very hard to believe that the allegations were true, but held back from speculating on this since I was not there in person. From my experience at other tournaments in this country, the family is of gentle persuasion and among the quietest and calmest I know within the junior chess community.

If the allegations are unfounded then this family would have a very good case for taking legal action as the family have been named being accused of hurting a child.
We have to wait to see if the police take any action over the allegations.It said yesterday that the police where taking a formal statement about the allegations.

[Andrew Zigmond]

If the allegations are unfounded then this family would have a very good case for taking legal action as the family have been named being accused of hurting a child.
We have to wait to see if the police take any action over the allegations.It said yesterday that the police where taking a formal statement about the allegations.

Let's not forget that the job of the police is not to judge right or wrong. They will investigate any allegations and then decide whether there is sufficient evidence to prosecute.

Unfortunately unless the publication that first published the allegation has a print edition available I'm not sure they're subject to libel laws or governed by the Press Complaints Commision. Given that Phil Ehr's email address was published (albeit a Federation email address already in the public domain) and people encouraged to write to him to make their feelings known he might just have a case under the Malicious Communications Act.

[Roger de Coverly]

Unfortunately unless the publication that first published the allegation has a print edition available I'm not sure they're subject to libel laws or governed by the Press Complaints Commision.

Press Complaints Commission probably not, but hasn't it been established for some years that material published on websites, forums, Twitter etc. is still subject to the various laws on defamation? The usual process is that the injured party asks the website owner to remove the offending material.

[Kevin Thurlow]

" hasn't it been established for some years that material published on websites, forums, Twitter etc. is still subject to the various laws on defamation? The usual process is that the injured party asks the website owner to remove the offending material."

I think that's the case.

Also photographs of people were published and in the circumstances, it's unlikely permission was sought to do that. Obviously, that gets ignored a lot!

[Peter D Williams]

Unfortunately unless the publication that first published the allegation has a print edition available I'm not sure they're subject to libel laws or governed by the Press Complaints Commision.

Press Complaints Commission probably not, but hasn't it been established for some years that material published on websites, forums, Twitter etc. is still subject to the various laws on defamation? The usual process is that the injured party asks the website owner to remove the offending material.

That is correct Roger and the injured party can seek damages from the various websites and also from the family who made those allegations.The allegations made where very serious about a child being hurt by a mother.

[Peter D Williams]

If the allegations are unfounded then this family would have a very good case for taking legal action as the family have been named being accused of hurting a child.
We have to wait to see if the police take any action over the allegations.It said yesterday that the police where taking a formal statement about the allegations.

Let's not forget that the job of the police is not to judge right or wrong. They will investigate any allegations and then decide whether there is sufficient evidence to prosecute.

Unfortunately unless the publication that first published the allegation has a print edition available I'm not sure they're subject to libel laws or governed by the Press Complaints Commision. Given that Phil Ehr's email address was published (albeit a Federation email address already in the public domain) and people encouraged to write to him to make their feelings known he might just have a case under the Malicious Communications Act.

If the police investigate and did decide there is sufficient evidence to prosecute would this not then call into question the ECF statement.

[Andrew Zigmond]

If the police investigate and did decide there is sufficient evidence to prosecute would this not then call into question the ECF statement.

IF being the critical word. Surely we should cross this particular bridge when we come to it? Let's not forget that the Austrian police investigated and took no action.