Racing cannot dismiss Milton Harris as one bad egg - there’s a lot of work to do to clean up the sport

I was deeply shocked to read the evidence released by the BHA last month following the licensing committee’s refusal to grant a training licence to Milton Harris. While many people were aware he was under investigation, most would not have realised just how bad some of his behaviour had been.

Among many breaches of his licence, Harris was found to have behaved inappropriately towards two female members of staff, one aged 12-13 on work experience and the other aged 14-16 who was saved in his phone as ‘Lovely Young Girl’ and with whom he was said to drive conversation to adult topics and make several ‘jokes’ with sexual connotations. The committee explicitly found on three occasions as stated in its written reasons that Harris's behaviour was not sexually motivated. 

While Harris has been weeded out, racing cannot dismiss the case as a one-off. The sport should be mortified he was involved in it for so long and must now demonstrate how it plans to prevent such behaviour in the future. All participants need to step up here, take a look around themselves and think of this as their moral duty of care.