Darwen footballers admit lying to help teammate (From Lancashire Telegraph)

Darwen footballers admit lying to help teammate

9:00pm Wednesday 24th February 2010 in News By Sam Chadderton, Reporter

THREE footballers who blamed a crash on another driver were caught out by a team photograph after claiming they did not know each other.

Darwen men Marc Fitton, 23, of Spring Vale Garden Village, John Leeming, 22, of Earls Drive, and Kenneth Langford, 43, of Cranberry Fold Court were all part of amateur league side Old Blackburnians.

Yet when father-of-one Fitton crashed into a 65-year-old man in February 2008, his teammate Leeming and manager Langford told police they were ‘independent witnesses’.

Their statements led to the elderly driver, Mr Baker, facing a trial for dangerous driving.

However, when police discovered the photograph confirming the men had known each other for three years, they were all prosecuted for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

At Preston Crown Court yesterday, Recorder Michael Blakey told the three defendants that they had avoided jail ‘by the skin of your teeth’.

Each was given 12 months imprisonment, suspended for two years and told to pay Mr Baker £500 each in compensation as a ‘token gesture’.

Gareth Jones, defending Fitton, said he had expressed ‘remorse and contrition’ for ‘bolstering the account’ of his friend and withholding his mobile phone from police.

For football club manager Langford, Philip Boyd, said his ‘honest account’ had ‘snowballed’ into ‘an extremely stupid episode’.

Leeming had tried to withdraw his statement at a later date, said his barrister Rosalind Henley-Smith.

“He had a certain sense of allegiance and found himself in a difficult position thereafter.”