Taxpayers will foot the bill for a psychiatrist to speak to a top horse rider due to be sentenced for flouting fire safety rules at her Oxfordshire stables.
Top ranked eventer Isabelle ‘Izzy’ Taylor, 39, had been due to be sentenced at Oxford Crown Court on Monday (April 3) for breaching fire safety rules at Aldershot Farm in Bucknell, near Bicester – putting at least one person at ‘risk of death or serious injury in case of fire’.
She failed to provide an ‘operational fire detector, alarm system and/or fire extinguisher’ or an adequate separation between bedrooms on an upper floor and electrical equipment on the ground floor.
But her lawyer, former chairman of the Criminal Bar Association Caroline Goodwin KC who is acting pro-bono, asked the Honorary Recorder of Oxford Judge Ian Pringle KC to adjourn the case for the preparation of pre-sentence psychiatric reports.
READ MORE: British horse eventer Izzy Taylor appears at Oxford Crown Court
It was suggested that her client, a talented horsewoman who was described as being on the ‘Olympic pathway’, could have a condition observed ‘amongst professional sportspeople’ where ‘they are so driven for perfection and at perfection the rest of their life is put on hold’.
Ms Goodwin also told the judge that her client had suffered a significant crash, understood to be a heavy fall at the Pau Horse Trials in 2021.
At the time, her team said both Taylor and the horse she was riding, Fonbherna Lancer, was ‘battered and bruised’ but ‘okay’.
The doctor identified to compile the psychiatric report had asked the barrister whether the defendant had ‘ever had a bad fall’, Ms Goodwin said.
She asked the judge whether he would order the court to foot the bill for the psychiatric report, acknowledging she was ‘chancing my arm and maybe my second arm’.
Ms Goodwin said her client was the breadwinner for her family and, despite competing at the highest level in her sport and running her own stables, was on a ‘very low level income’.
The KC, whose usual day-to-day involves prosecuting and defending murderers and who was once appointed to prosecute a series of sexual assault trials in rocky South Atlantic outpost Saint Helena, reminded the judge that she was acting on a pro-bono basis.
“I think you’ve convinced me that the court would be greatly assisted by a psychiatric report,” Judge Pringle said.
But he warned the defence advocate that, if the court was to pay for it, the judge would see its contents regardless of whether it helped or hindered Taylor’s case.
The report may be shown to the probation service, which has already compiled a pre-sentence report on Taylor.
The duty probation officer in court on Monday compared preparation of the pre-sentence report, which suggests potential alternatives to prison, before a psychiatric report as ‘putting the cart before the horse’.
Earlier, Ms Goodwin described her client as being ‘short on time’ and ‘tunnel visioned’ about her sport. She ‘perhaps doesn’t necessarily have the availability to step outside the box as she’s so driven’.
The convictions and sentence ultimately passed could have a significant impact on her ability to compete abroad, the judge was told.
Taylor, who was not present in courtroom one for Monday’s hearing, will be sentenced in July.
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