I see youâre a racist now Geoff
Criminal Courts over there are a mess.
They really are. The two tier justice system is alive and well as evidenced by josh molnar
we are nearly as bad on that front here
Tom Lawrence and Mason Bennett: how it got to this
By Adam Crafton and Ryan Conway 7h ago
As Tom Lawrence and Mason Bennett rose to their feet to hear the verdicts, the analysis from the district judge, Jonathan Taaffe, was blistering. The Derby County footballers had both pleaded guilty to charges of drink-driving and failing to stop at the scene of a crash.
âYou are intelligent and talented young men who brought shame upon yourselves, your families, your profession and your clubs,â Taafe said. âThose who pay hard-earned money to watch you play regard you as role models, very well-paid role models. Many will be incredulous that professional athletes, during the season, on a so-called team bonding day, are drinking and then making a decision to drive.
âThe aggravated features of the matter are many: drinking, choosing to drive when clearly there was no need to do so, an accident between two vehicles in unexplained circumstances, leaving the scene when a fellow professional was injured in the back of one of those vehicles. Some would say you did so out of panic, some would say you did so to save your own skin after realising the magnitude of what had occurred.â
In the moments that followed, relief was etched across the young faces of these Derby footballers. By any measure, Lawrence, 25, and 23-year-old Bennett were fortunate to escape prison.
Taaffe gave both players the same sentence: a 12-month community order, including 180 hours of unpaid work. Both have been disqualified from driving for two years, and must pay ÂŁ85 costs and a ÂŁ90 victim surcharge. Derby have also fined the pair six weeksâ wages and ordered 80 hours of community action, including a drink awareness course.
In the three days that followed the incident on September 24, the clubâs furious chairman Mel Morris twice rebuked the clubâs players. Derbyâs club secretary and HR lead opened internal investigations, taking oral and written accounts from the playersâ involved, the police and ambulance services.
Uncertainty still pervades the future of captain Richard Keogh, one of two passengers in Lawrenceâs Range Rover. He suffered career-threatening knee injuries and, after attending a further hospital appointment on Tuesday, is expected to undergo a total of three operations.
Little wonder, therefore, that some consider the punishments handed out by Derby and the court insufficient. Numerous supporters wrote to the club in the aftermath of the initial incident, unhappy Lawrence and Bennett had not been sacked. Taaffe shared their view. The judge said: âThe club stood by you when many employers would have dismissed you for gross misconduct.â
On Tuesday afternoon, the condemnation continued. The campaigning website Brake.org was unequivocal. In a statement to The Athletic , it said: âMr Bennett and Mr Lawrence should count themselves extremely lucky to escape jail. It is a miracle that no one was killed by their dangerous actions.
âDrivers who get behind the wheel after drinking knowingly put the lives of others at risk and should expect to face serious consequences. We urgently need the government to amend our drink-driving laws to a zero-tolerance limit, making it clear to drivers that not a drop of alcohol is safe behind the wheel.â
To many observers, particularly those who do not follow the sport closely, this will be an occasion to confirm all those old stereotypes surrounding young footballers. Too much too soon, playboy princes who refuse to grow up, one rule for us, another one for you.
And yet, as events played out in the bleak setting of Southern Derbyshire Magistratesâ Court yesterday, this emerged as a more morally stimulating case than it might appear.
The events of September 24 remain stark. Derbyâs dressing room, after enduring a poor start to the season under new manager Phillip Cocu, organised a social get-together to rally the troops.
âA team bonding day,â bemoaned Lawrenceâs defending solicitor Shaun Draycott in court. âI often wonder, âWhy the hell do they do them?â What good do they actually do?â
This one featured players and members of the clubâs analysis team. It began at a bowling alley and proceeded to the Joiners Arms pub in Quarndon, a village just north of Derby.
âIt was not meant to be a piss-up,â insisted one Derby source. âIt was supposed to be a smart meal.â
The club organised cars to take the players home at 8pm but some stayed out. The drink flowed.
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One Football League manager tells The Athletic : âIâve had it a million times where you try and do a bit of bonding with the players. We say, âThereâs a new restaurant in town. Theyâll do a deal on mealsâ. The club will say, âNo problem. Go at 7pm, home at 9pm, everybody out.â
âIâm sure itâs not just Derby, but six or seven will go on. There is a little bit of a culture there. Theyâll have one or two beers, then thatâs not enough for them, âLetâs go to the casinoâ or somewhere else. They can have four, five, six beers, and then drive home.
âThey just donât think. There is a drinking culture within some British players, but why even drink? Youâre an elite athlete. At the end of the day they are grown adults and you canât watch them 24/7.â
The court heard yesterday how âa Jaeger bomb (a cocktail of 35 per cent alcohol spirit Jaegermeister and an energy drink) made Bennett sick. It was bought by a team-mate, he felt peer-pressured to have it. He vomited at 9.30pm and left the pub at 10.30pm.â
The footage of Bennettâs vomiting emerged on his team-mate Tom Huddlestoneâs social media account. Only the same week, Cocu had decided Huddlestone, 32 years old, a former Premier League player at Tottenham Hotspur and with England caps to his name, should be Derbyâs new captain. Within hours, his video of Bennett emerged and he was subsequently stripped of the privilege.
This, however, was merely the prelude. Rather than order taxis, Bennett got behind the wheel of his car. Lawrence stepped into his vehicle. For Lawrence, the irresponsibility multiplied as two passengers, Keogh and an unnamed 18-year-old academy player, joined him.
The Joiners Arms is a not posh pub itself but it is familiar to sporting royalty. As the cars pulled away from the pub, the players would have skirted past the Common, where Brian Clough once lived. Then they passed by the home of cycling chief Sir Dave Brailsford. Shortly before the crash, on the approach to a T-Junction, the cars went past the mansion owned by former Derby chairman Peter Gadsby.
One former Derby player told The Athletic : âI know the stretch of road. It is quiet but a single carriageway. People go tonking it down there. Where they crashed, there are flowers down all the time â itâs like the brow of a hill, people pull out and get hit.â
The crash itself was high impact, as Lawrenceâs car clattered into the rear of Bennettâs, before striking âroadside furnitureâ. Instead of embracing the immediate consequences, the players fled the scene.
Neither Bennett nor Lawrence called the emergency services. Instead, it was by sheer chance that an ambulance was passing by and tended to a passenger. Amid the panic, Bennett drove his young academy team-mate away from the scene in his damaged car and Lawrence then called Bennett to ask for a lift from a local petrol station.
They returned to the scene 45 minutes later but Keogh had, for a while at least, been left to fend for himself. Back at the scene, the pair then co-operated with police. No handcuffs were needed. Lawrence provided a sample of 58 mg of alcohol per 100 millimetres of breath while Bennett blew 64 mg. The legal limit is 35 mg.
Different punishments were contemplated in court. The judge repeatedly teased a custodial sentence. He considered an electronically monitored curfew but the playersâ defence raised the complications of overnight stays before away games. The judge wondered aloud over the logistics of asking whether players ought to travel on the day of such matches.
Bennett and Lawrence sat on the benches, joined by their agents and a club communications director, and mostly looked down at the floor. They barely glanced at one another.
The Magistratesâ Court is a grubby and unedifying environment, where district judges rule over cases that seem more akin to those seen on tabloid talk shows. As the judge ordered the players to hold meetings with the probation officers as he weighed up his punishment, he next presided over a case involving a woman who had pretended to be her sister and a drunk accused of petty theft.
Lawrence had arrived at court in a BMW at 9.02am, for a 10am start, and was greeted by a blur of flashing cameras. Bennett followed shortly afterwards. His face looked haunted. As they departed, they were goaded by passers-by scrambling to take pictures with their camera phones.
One source close to the dressing room said: âThey have both been utterly shattered.â
During extensive conversations over recent weeks, a picture emerges of otherwise decent young men who made a serious mistake. Up to a dozen former coaches have been asked for their insight and all refused to say a negative word about either player. This is not usual in football.
In Bennettâs case, he is an academy graduate who joined his club at the age of 11 and made his Derby debut at only 15 years and 99 days old. The shirt he wore that day against Middlesbrough remains framed at the home of his grandmother Gene, who played a pivotal role in his childhood.
At the Shirebrook Academy, vice principal Alison Brannick described Bennett as âa superb role model for all young peopleâ after he balanced his education and football to take some of his GCSEs a year early. In 2014, he was named Apprentice of the Year at the Football League awards. Upon receiving the ÂŁ500 prize, he said he would take his gran â in whose house he then lived with his mother Lydia â out for a meal.
Bennett may not have kicked on like some might have expected, but he remains a good Championship footballer. His defence team said in court that he has a four-year-old daughter who lives with his former partner in nearby Mansfield. The ex-couple maintain an amicable relationship, it was claimed; Bennett pays his share and the courts have seen no custody battles.
His two references came from long-time agent Anthony Lymn and a family member. At the prospect of prison, his defence said he became âemotionalâ. They continued: âHe thought it would affect his daughter. He is a caring and responsible father. He seemed genuinely remorseful, full of regret and he has isolated himself in recent weeks.â
In the case of Lawrence, the picture is more complex. In May, shortly before the play-off final defeat against Aston Villa, in which he started, his mother Deborah passed away after a short illness. Lawrence emerged through the Manchester United youth system, playing alongside Paul Pogba, Jesse Lingard, Michael Keane and Ravel Morrison in their 2011 FA Youth Cup winning side. He grew up in Wrexham and his mother, a teacher, would often drive him the 45 miles to Unitedâs training ground as a child. She was, the court heard, with him every step of the way. âShe was instrumental in his upbringing and pursuit of sporting excellence,â said Draycott, defending Lawrence.
One source close to the family told The Athletic how Deborah was awarded recognition in Flintshire for her work. Lawrence, as a nine-year-old, won the county player of the year award in 2005, following in the footsteps of the likes of Gary Speed and Michael Owen.
Draycott described the mitigation as âsubstantial and compellingâ, proof that Lawrence had âbehaved out of characterâ. The most alarming and moving details came when Draycott presented a medical report. Following his motherâs death, Derby grew concerned for Lawrenceâs mental health. They organised counselling and he benefited from frequent sessions with a therapist. These sessions preceded the incident, underlining a pre-existent problem, Draycott argued, rather than a cynical response to âmake things look betterâ in court.
Draycott said: âIt impacted greatly on the young manâs psychological health. It relates to the consumption of alcohol. On a trip to America shortly after her (Deborahâs) death, he found himself drinking heavily. He needed alcohol to remove deep sadness and needed drink to help him get to sleep.â
He urged the judge to âhave regard for that mental state very much in place in the early hours of that fateful morningâ of the incident.
Lawrenceâs psychologist, in a report submitted to court, said the player had become âquite dependantâ on alcohol as a coping mechanism. The specialist wrote: âTom appears to be an isolated young man deeply missing his mother, who uses alcohol to build his confidence.â
Lawrence had confided in Draycott over his fears. He worried how his dad, not long after losing his wife, would cope without his son. âPrison will mess with my head,â Lawrence told the solicitor.
Derby do, privately, believe that team-mates were aware, to some extent at least, of Lawrenceâs ongoing struggles.
While there is empathy for Keoghâs injuries, particularly at the age of 33, there is also bewilderment that a captain and experienced player was part of the group that carried on drinking. There is also disappointment that he did not, in his position of seniority, intervene before Lawrence took to the wheel and allowed an 18-year-old into the passenger seat.
Keogh, who has never held a driving license, now knows his future is unclear. He has barely been seen at the training ground since the incident, mostly owing to the gravity of his injury.
The defence submission to court also included references about Lawrence from two of footballâs leading names. Frank Lampard, his Derby manager last season, lost his own mother, Patricia, during his playing days at Chelsea and has remained in close contact with Lawrence. âIf I ever need anything, heâs always there,â Lawrence said of the Chelsea manager.
The second reference came from his Wales manager Ryan Giggs, who also provided positive endorsements of his character. âBoth have put their necks on the block to illustrate their view of the Tom Lawrence they know and see on a regular basis,â Draycott explained. âIt is not the names that matter, it is the content. They might have found it easy to avoid this but they are genuine in believing he behaved out of character.â
Giggsâ relationship with Lawrence goes back several years. As caretaker player-manager of United, Giggs handed Lawrence his senior debut in a victory over Hull City, calling him into his office to tell him: âYouâre starting tonight. Go out there and enjoy it.â Lawrence played 70 minutes before being replaced by Giggs himself, as the United icon made his final appearance for the club. The Wales boss, like his club counterpart Cocu, has stood by Lawrence in the weeks following the incident. He called up the winger for Walesâ international fixtures this month, while Cocu brought him swiftly back into Derbyâs team.
In sport, as in life, people mess up. Bennett and Lawrence are not the first to get behind the wheel while over the legal limit and will not be the last.
Their soon to be Derby team-mate, Wayne Rooney, was banned after a drink-driving incident. Hugo Lloris, Danny Drinkwater, Yaya Toure and Roberto Firmino are just a handful of further examples from football. It is an uncomfortable truth but where a footballer remains a valuable asset, his club rarely adopts the cut-throat position we might expect from everyday employers.
To some, the rights and wrongs of all this will be clean-cut, particularly for anyone who has been touched by the brutal consequences of drink-driving. In Lawrenceâs case, he really ought to have known better. His long-term former football agent, Peter Morrison, was imprisoned in 2018 after causing death by dangerous driving while speeding and texting at the wheel.
There is hope that he, Bennett, Derby and the sport will learn from this.
The pair headed to the training ground on Tuesday afternoon for training in an attempt to bring this sorry episode to a close. Both will be eligible for selection in the away fixture against Charlton Athletic on Saturday. Derby, meanwhile, will put their senior and academy players through stringent social media training and review their education protocols around drinking and social events.
Draycott said: âWhat sets this apart from my many submissions over the years is the remarkable level of remorse I have witnessed from Tom. I have rarely seen remorse such as this.â
Derby are understood to have fielded complaints from supporters about their decision to let the pair continue playing ahead of the court case (Lawrence scored in the 2-0 win over Luton Town on October 5, for example), but fans spoken to by The Athletic yesterday appeared to have softened their stance.
âObviously learning that about Lawrence (his mental health problems) makes you understand better,â said one, who wished to remain anonymous. âAnd because of that I do have more sympathy for him. We should pull together for him now.â
Another said: âItâs a lenient punishment in my eyes. But the courts have made their decision and the club have punished them. Itâs hard to accept but what can you do? Reckon we need to look at drink-driving a lot more seriously. Theyâre lucky. But itâs over now. Move on.â
Steve Walsh was involved in signing Lawrence for Leicester City, the club he joined in 2014. Walsh had scouted Lawrence at the same time as following a 16-year-old Raheem Sterling.
âIt is a shame what has happened with the drink driving,â Walsh told The Athletic. âHe is a nice lad but still young and can get himself back on track. He just needs a guiding hand. We scouted him at (Manchester) United and he was one of a number of players we tried to sign on loan or permanently, because I had a good relationship with (United) reserve team manager Warren Joyce. We paid ÂŁ750,000 for him and sold him for ÂŁ8 million to Derby (three years later), so we made a good profit, but I donât think he has fulfilled his true potential.â
Now Lawrence and Bennett have a final chance to repay those who stood by them
Sacked by Derby County according to my sources.
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Obviously itâs an injury he wonât come back from.
So the two English lads who were driving the cars while drunk get pretty much straight back into the team, while the irish guy who was only a passenger gets sacked.
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Probably not a huge future as a driving instructor either in fairness.
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The two English lads are commodities, the Irish lad is a crock.
Yep. Thatâs why they got fined just six weeks wages and he was offered a significant pay cut
Irish? 
Theyâve basically spent the last month checking it out with the medical department re his chances of making a return from it and the timeline involved while getting the legal eagles to see can they sack him and theyâve made a decision on the basis of it.
I had heard a few stories about Keogh beforehand, heâs a silly boy.
Obviously . Footballers love that word.
Heâs 33âŚ
Yes. Iâm a Bob Radcliffe Cup winner.
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Itâs the equivalent of the standard GAA openers: I suppose, Lookit and Yerra.
Itâs shameful. Nowt to do with race. Entirely to do with commodity value. He wasnât even driving. He was offered a coaching role on a hugely reduced salary. Derby are behaving poorly here.
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Richard Keogh now knows how a racehorse who gets a bullet to the head for pulling up lame feels