DARREN SUTHERLAND, an Olympic boxing medal-winner and a potential champion in the professional game, died in a Bromley flat in London in September 2009, and, for those close to him, time has brought no healing.
Yesterday, two men, his father Tony and boxing manager Frank Maloney, sat feet apart and looked at each other, pain etched in the faces of both.
“I am very sorry for what happened to your son,” said Mr Maloney from the witness box, adding that he would “love to sit down and sort it out”.
Clearly angry, Mr Sutherland rose from his seat, saying: “It is a bit late now, it is too little, too late.” The boxer’s father left the room with tears in his eyes.
Coroner Dr Roy Palmer, who had gently guided all of the witnesses through their evidence over four days, stayed silent, letting the moment pass.
The Sutherlands claim Mr Maloney should have done more to ease their son’s path into professional boxing. The manager, a veteran of the fight game, says he did everything he could.
Insisting that Mr Sutherland had “a good contract”, the best he had ever given to a former Olympian, Mr Maloney said the terms favoured Sutherland, not him.
Earlier, Mr Maloney had been the one in tears, recounting the moment when he and colleague Joe Dunbar found Sutherland’s body in his flat.
The image would live with him for the rest of his life, he said. “I think I flipped out, I don’t know.” Later that day, he was taken to hospital suffering from a heart-attack.
Clearly distressed by allegations that Sutherland had been frightened of him, Mr Maloney lifted up a copy of his local newspaper, The Bromley Times, which had the inquest as its lead story.
“Everybody can surmise what they like. I know what I did. I am not a monster and somebody has tried to paint me as a monster. I have had to live with all this s*** in the paper,” he said.
“Why did this young man do this?” he went on, before he broke into tears. Dr Palmer called a brief adjournment. The Sutherlands looked on coldly.Accepting that there were notes on the table when he entered Sutherland’s flat, he denied that he had removed a letter addressed to him.
The letter, if it existed, has never been found.
During persistent, often confrontational questioning, the Sutherlands’ barrister Michael Topolski pressed Mr Maloney again and again about the letter.
“Where’s the letter that Darren wrote to you. No idea?” the barrister declared. Rejecting Mr Maloney’s denials, Mr Topolski went on: “Yes, you do.”
