Robbie Dunne claimed on Tuesday that accusations he had conducted a campaign of bullying against fellow jockey Bryony Frost only surfaced after a telephone call he received threatening to break his legs.
The alleged call happened on September 7, 2020, four days after Dunne is claimed to have threatened to put Frost through the wing of a fence after blaming her riding for the fatal fall of his mount Cillian’s Well at Southwell.
Questioned on the fourth day of the BHA disciplinary hearing, Dunne said he believed the claims of bullying arose because those responsible for making the phone call realised they had ‘gone too far’. Under questioning from the BHA’s barrister Louis Weston, Dunne said: ‘The bullying (allegations) did not appear until after the phone call threatening to break my legs from a West Country accent which the police are dealing with.
‘Before that there was no suggestion I bullied anyone.’
Jockey Bryony Frost (left) with her dad Jimmy, who is also a trainer, at Newton Abbott
Asked why Frost’s trainer-father Jimmy had supported the bullying allegations made by his daughter, Dunne replied: ‘Because he had something to do with the phone call I received.’
However, Weston dismissed Dunne’s claim that he had not already been involved in bullying behaviour, citing a ‘mocking’ tweet