Higgins has claimed that two minutes before entering the room Mooney told him they may bring up the prospect of fixing. Prior to that he had no idea.
Higgins has also said he thought they were Russian Mafia and he wanted nothing more than to get out of there asap.
It's those two claims that have led him to get off so lightly. Are you as gullible as the QC to believe that crap. I 'am not.
How long does it take someone who wants nothing to do with taking a dive to say "Sod that then I'm outa here" ? It's an instant reaction from an innocent man to not even enter the room.
Higgins is as thick as two short planks, obviously happy to take a dive but unlike his fellow pros he's never opened a Swiss bank account and dealt with "the Mafia" via untraceable mobile phone texts
.
Innocent of fixing? Yes.
Guilty of plotting to? most definitely.
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Re: sportingintellegence / Regarding the video:
17-23 seconds: in a context unclear, the “main man” on the NotW sting team (we call him MM), says: “You’re going to tell him frame three I’m going to lose”. This is accurately reflected in the sub-title: “You are going to tell him frame three I am going to lose.”
The NotW sub-title then has Higgins saying: “Oh yeah. Frame three I am going to lose yes, yes”. The sub-title evidently draws the eye. But looking solely at what Higgins actually says and does reveals a difference between presentation and fact.
What Higgins actually appears to say is: “Frame three I’m going to lose, yeah. No. [Shakes head no].
Look at the video and you'll see he does not shake his head no at all.
42-46 seconds: The MM, again in an unclear context, says to Higgins: “So you narrowly miss a ball go to pocket and that’s it.” This sentence, albeit oddly worded, is reflected correctly in the subtitle.
In the video, it is clear from Higgins’ lip movement that he says only a single word here in reply: “Yeah”.
Bizarrely, Higgins’ reply according to the sub-title, slightly out of sync, is: “Yeah, simple as that.”
Yet the words “simple as that” are spoken by a different voice, apparently in an English accent and not obviously attached to anyone in the room.
Pretty obvious to me that the " simple as that" was a question asked by the other guy in the room which went unanswered. The question was asked so quickly after Higgins's "yeah" he didn't think to use his fake accent and the subtitler simply thought it was the one voice.
From all the footage made public, it appears there were four people in the room: Higgins, Mooney (both Scottish), the MM (whose voice is disguised) and somebody later named as Jaroslav, who speaks in heavily accented English. The person saying “Simple as that” is not known, but the NotW clearly suggests in subtitles that Higgins speaks those words.
As I've said earlier my son is totally deaf as such subtitles are on my tv all the time and I have in 20+ years of watching such never seen anything longer than a couple of lines 100% word for word accurately subtitled. It's not surprising though as whoever does the typing listens first then types They don't have a script. They merely get the gist of a sentence right which is all that's needed.
MM: So, four frames, one per, yep?
JH: Yeah (nods).
R2: Which one?
MM: He’ll tell us whenever. We are not going to discuss this ever again. You’ll just tip me off. Yep?
PM: (Nods.) Yep.
MM: OK? We agreed? OK?
JH: Yep (shakes hand with R2, and MM).
Note sportingintelligence does not claim that part of the video was doctored.
Everything else in the waffle is simply that, waffle, meaningless repeating of the slight miswordings by the subtitler that have no relevance and points to stupid things such as where the video was cut when they went to get the booze and place it on the table.
Conclusion: Edited yes. Doctored no. Fabricated no
Bottom line..
Higgins has most likely never took a dive but given the opportunity to he would have and is guilty of trying to arrange a fix. Mooney, once the story unfolded realised he'd been taped on previous occasions and had no chance of pulling the wool over anyone's eyes with the same cock and bull story Higgins presented. (no doubt dreamt up by his solicitors or even Mooney as John is too thick to think of it) and so almost instantly Mooney quit.
Mooney's solicitors played their ace in the hearing when challenging the WPBSA's right of jurisdiction with regard to the first two charges. Had the WPBSA's jurisdiction not included breaches of the betting rules referred to the 3rd charge they may have well dropped that one too.
Had that happened then Higgins's solicitors could have argued that as Mooney was a director of the WPBSA then the incident effectively had been reported but that would have been hoping for a miracle instead Higgins has escaped with a slap on the wrist and earned himself the new nick of Houdini Higgins.
I might go to Telford to see the U.K. Championship come November... Watch the TV you might see and hear me shout "KERCHING" every time he misses a shot.
