Hornets: Lewis Galbraith not guilty of verbal abuse

Photo: Jackie Meredith

Lewis Galbraith scoreing a try for Hornets

Lewis Galbraith has been found not guilty of 'verbal abuse based on colour' on appeal - an independent tribunal overturned the original guilty decision.

Galbraith was initially handed an eight-match ban after being found guilty of verbally abusing Oldham’s Sam Gee by an independent Operational Rules Tribunal last week.

The appeal panel heard evidence from members of both clubs, including players and staff at the appeal on Wednesday.

The panel felt there was contradictory and insufficient evidence to charge Galbraith with the allegations that related to an incident in the 79th minute of the Summer Bash clash in May.

Galbraith said: “People will say we won here, but it doesn’t feel like it. I’ve had my name dragged through the mud, and plastered across the back page of my local [Oldham] newspaper.

"Nobody won here but I’m just glad that I can get back to playing rugby league and helping the boys finish the campaign strong.

“I also want to thank Adam, the board, staff and my teammates who have been behind me on this along with the supporters who have backed me while this has been going on.”

Hornets CEO Adam Bates said: “I’m pleased that this matter has been put to bed. We have said since the charges were made that we felt that the small amount of evidence there was against Lewis was poor, inconsistent, and not independent. We said that we would fight it as far as we could to get the right decision, and we have.

“I feel that there must be lessons learned from this investigation. I appreciate that the RFL must investigate and take seriously any allegations of abuse, and as always we gave them our full co-operation on this.

“However, I was disappointed to see the RFL and Oldham RLFC publish the charges online, which subsequently were picked up by local and national news outlets. I don’t think this did any favours to Lewis, the investigation, our club or our sport.

“It’s important that player welfare is taken into consideration with all of this. This case had the potential to set a very dangerous precedent within our sport. I‘m just glad the tribunal saw it the same way that we did, and I’ll look forward to seeing Lewis back in action very soon.”

Galbraith will be available for selection this week when Hornets host London Broncos in their final home game of the regular season.