Christian Horner under Investigation

[f1jcw]

ISo best to just let it be handled by lawyers who must have seen the real things and can decide on whether this is something to be punished or not.

Lawyers do not decide on whether something is punished or not.
Horners lawyers are there to defend him, even if he is totally wrong.

Even the "independent" redbull lawyers would not have said sack or keep, they wrote a report, what happens with that report is for others to decide on.

[Watto]

As I’ve said though without a victim statement the FIAs hands are really tied a complaint from Toto or Lewis isn’t going to go all that far if they rock up to her door and she doesn’t co operate. They could try I’m sure but lawyers at 12 paces would shut it down pretty quick.

I don’t doubt the FIA have the power to act if they find a coverup or whatever just without her cooperation it’s going to be a very very tall ask, without being able to verify the conversation as authentic via metadata/exif data - which has been stripped from the leaked images no lawyer worth their paycheque would touch them

They don't need a victim statement or her cooperation, although you would hope she would give it.

Here is an article giving you some more detail on the power the FIA have: https://www.si.com/fannation/racing/f1b ... gation-sj4

EXIF data is easy to manipulate and fake.

That would be unlikely to be taken into account unless there was an anomaly that suggested it wasn't genuine.

I agree EXIF data can be faked equally images especially with AI these days is so easily faked


But again without a the victim here co operating I doubt the investigation gets all that far despite that link/ article they can call all involved into an interview but if you don’t answer questions you’re on pretty shaky ground. I doubt the FIA touches a thing here unless they have very solid information, just because too the FIA has those rules doesn’t always make them legally enforceable- if the FIA forced RB to sack Horner but were challenged in court and lost it would be pretty embarrassing to them - alas why they likely dropped the Suzi investigation pretty quickly- though as someone pointed out Suzi’s reach in woman’s rights etc would be a good starting point to see if she’d co operate. Like a police case with someone either unwilling to press charges or a witness withdrawn their statement.

Enough people both here and on Reddit have argued the authenticity of the images some for some against would create enough doubt

[Watto]

ISo best to just let it be handled by lawyers who must have seen the real things and can decide on whether this is something to be punished or not.

Lawyers do not decide on whether something is punished or not.
Horners lawyers are there to defend him, even if he is totally wrong.

Even the "independent" redbull lawyers would not have said sack or keep, they wrote a report, what happens with that report is for others to decide on.

Agree with all that and we don’t even know what the lawyers report said it may have said along the lines of Horners behaviour was poor but your legal ground so sack him under workplace law is thin (more legal sounding than that mind you ) if Horners lawyers are threatening to challenge you could be in for a messy fight that’s way too public

[myurr]

I believe the way Horner is handling this is the right way. Regardless of what he says or does, it will never satisfy anyone. So best to just let it be handled by lawyers who must have seen the real things and can decide on whether this is something to be punished or not.

If this was a crime or abuse of power, then it should not stand a chance in a court case. If this is legally fine then one can think whatever they want about Horner but doesn't deserve this attention. I have friends doing the same thing (dating inside a company, in the line hierarchy [at first it's always fine for both sides]/ friends cheating on their partners) yet this should not be of public interest.

Horner's lawyers represent him and protect his interests. Red Bull's lawyers represent the company and protect their interests. And as pointed out they do not sit in judgement. They write a report, typically to the chairman of the board in a case like this, with the board then making the judgement / decision. Neither side is acting in the interests of the victim.

The company is supposed to act in accordance with employment law and their internal policies, but history is littered with examples of companies failing to do so when it suits. Until the victim's case makes it to a properly independent tribunal (the step after she tries appealing internally in Red Bull) then you have to take any judgement with an appropriate pinch of salt.

If your friends are involved in a consensual relationship and have never abused their position of power to instigate that relationship, then I would suggest they are foolish and of questionable moral stature but it's their choice. If your friends have ever abused their position of power in a similar way to what it appears Horner has done then they are despicable people and I hope it catches up to them, and they lose their careers and positions of power. No one should treat another human being in that way.

[Wouter]

There’s Jos not attending Jeddah with RB camp.

.
His own decision or thrown out by RBR?

.
Normaly Jos never attends two GP races in a row. He doesn't want to be so long away from home, his wife and young children.

[myurr]

But again without a the victim here co operating I doubt the investigation gets all that far despite that link/ article they can call all involved into an interview but if you don’t answer questions you’re on pretty shaky ground. I doubt the FIA touches a thing here unless they have very solid information, just because too the FIA has those rules doesn’t always make them legally enforceable- if the FIA forced RB to sack Horner but were challenged in court and lost it would be pretty embarrassing to them - alas why they likely dropped the Suzi investigation pretty quickly- though as someone pointed out Suzi’s reach in woman’s rights etc would be a good starting point to see if she’d co operate. Like a police case with someone either unwilling to press charges or a witness withdrawn their statement.

The FIA do not need the victim to cooperate. They can interview anyone they like at Red Bull Racing, they can demand the report and the evidence used to write the report, they can demand justification from Red Bull Racing for the decision to retain Horner. Failure to co-operate is a punishable offence, with the ultimate sanction open to the FIA being to exclude Red Bull from the championship should they need to take it that far.

If the leaks and stories of the rift between RBR and RB GmbH and how to handle Horner are accurate then it makes a mockery of any of the FIA's other equality and inclusion initiatives, undermining all the progress that Susie and many others are trying to make there.

Enough people both here and on Reddit have argued the authenticity of the images some for some against would create enough doubt

Not one of them have put forth a credible reason for why the images are definitively fake. There are plenty of people who offer their opinion, but given the number of people glossing over Horner's behaviour due to their support of the team he heads up personally I'm not going to give that much credence. I am honestly sickened by some of the responses, justifying Horner as just being one of the lads, failing to understand someone can withdraw their consent, I had one person on Reddit tell me the girl should be flattered to get so much attention from someone as powerful as Horner. Even in this thread you have someone compare Horner to Flavio dating a young model and saying many people aspire to achieve similar. It's shameful.

Can you give any technical or objective reason to believe those images are definitively fake?

[Watto]

But again without a the victim here co operating I doubt the investigation gets all that far despite that link/ article they can call all involved into an interview but if you don’t answer questions you’re on pretty shaky ground. I doubt the FIA touches a thing here unless they have very solid information, just because too the FIA has those rules doesn’t always make them legally enforceable- if the FIA forced RB to sack Horner but were challenged in court and lost it would be pretty embarrassing to them - alas why they likely dropped the Suzi investigation pretty quickly- though as someone pointed out Suzi’s reach in woman’s rights etc would be a good starting point to see if she’d co operate. Like a police case with someone either unwilling to press charges or a witness withdrawn their statement.

The FIA do not need the victim to cooperate. They can interview anyone they like at Red Bull Racing, they can demand the report and the evidence used to write the report, they can demand justification from Red Bull Racing for the decision to retain Horner. Failure to co-operate is a punishable offence, with the ultimate sanction open to the FIA being to exclude Red Bull from the championship should they need to take it that far.

If the leaks and stories of the rift between RBR and RB GmbH and how to handle Horner are accurate then it makes a mockery of any of the FIA's other equality and inclusion initiatives, undermining all the progress that Susie and many others are trying to make there.

Enough people both here and on Reddit have argued the authenticity of the images some for some against would create enough doubt

Not one of them have put forth a credible reason for why the images are definitively fake. There are plenty of people who offer their opinion, but given the number of people glossing over Horner's behaviour due to their support of the team he heads up personally I'm not going to give that much credence. I am honestly sickened by some of the responses, justifying Horner as just being one of the lads, failing to understand someone can withdraw their consent, I had one person on Reddit tell me the girl should be flattered to get so much attention from someone as powerful as Horner. It's alarming!

Can you give any technical or objective reason to believe those images are definitively fake?

I actually think they are legit and that Horner should go. A quick google you can find AI tools to generate fake conversation. Without something fairly solid to back up their authenticity I’d say their grounds are pretty thin

[ScottB]

I would suggest that the investigation will have certainly been able to have access to the complainant's mobile, if not Horner's too. The screenshots will be a record of evidence, but will presumably have been collaborated by seeing the actual device(s).

Also, if someone wanted to orchestrate a conspiracy to frame Horner, they wouldn't be just churning out stuff via AI, there's far better ways to make fake WhatsApp screens...

[PlatinumZealot]

F1 is the place for excitement, lavishness, risk, entertainment, and extravagance, not a place for moral high ground and family entertainment. So F1 communities should stop judging others' private lives.

FIA should go after the people who leak private conversations to discourage others from using character assassination as a tool to bring down rival teams.

Hypothetically, suppose if Christian Horner decided to step down, I would think that many team owners will be keen to engage him to turn their team to become RB.

Perhaps Jos is instigating this to get CH across to Ferrari so that Max can join him?

I hope that your daughter, loved ones, family, and friends doesn't include any women that have had to cope with a misogynistic sexual predator for a boss.

I've personally seen it happen, or have had someone later confide in me, in four separate cases and it is absolutely devastating for the victims. I also know of one other case of a friend of a friend who tragically took her life because she worked in a small industry (not unlike F1) and was hounded out of it - after she made her formal complaint her boss twisted the process to clear him, fired her, and bad mouthed her to the other companies in that industry.

If Christian Horner is guilty then he has wrecked some poor girl's life, who from her texts was already battling some problems in her private life. His actions have put her at the centre of a media storm, put her in an untenable position in her job, and put this scandal at the top of Google search results if you search her name.

Think of all the other women in the industry who will be at more risk of similar occurring should Horner get away with this. It's declaring that this kind of behaviour is acceptable within the F1 paddock. Shame on anyone who tries to excuse his behaviour or dismiss its importance.

We still don't know what he did!! That's the thing.

If the Whatsapp messages are real, there is enough evidence of him being a "creepy boss" and perhaps a pervert, but not much more than that. Women actually encouter such behaviour quite regularly, life not exactly ruined. We need more transparency to see if this was something persistent, manipulative and burdensome. I am not absolving him of wrong-doing, just saying that the victim could have seen an opening and taken full advantage as well.

On the other side, he could have went much further than asking for photos and cocopuffs! lol It's a slam dunk now if there are photos of him putting his hands in places, and going out with this girl... And even then what if it was consensual? A lot of these things need to be ironed out.

[myurr]

I would suggest that the investigation will have certainly been able to have access to the complainant's mobile, if not Horner's too. The screenshots will be a record of evidence, but will presumably have been collaborated by seeing the actual device(s).

Also, if someone wanted to orchestrate a conspiracy to frame Horner, they wouldn't be just churning out stuff via AI, there's far better ways to make fake WhatsApp screens...

Horner said he'd deleted his messages and repeatedly pushed his victim to do the same.

[maxxer]

F1 is the place for excitement, lavishness, risk, entertainment, and extravagance, not a place for moral high ground and family entertainment. So F1 communities should stop judging others' private lives.

FIA should go after the people who leak private conversations to discourage others from using character assassination as a tool to bring down rival teams.

Hypothetically, suppose if Christian Horner decided to step down, I would think that many team owners will be keen to engage him to turn their team to become RB.

Perhaps Jos is instigating this to get CH across to Ferrari so that Max can join him?

I hope that your daughter, loved ones, family, and friends doesn't include any women that have had to cope with a misogynistic sexual predator for a boss.

I've personally seen it happen, or have had someone later confide in me, in four separate cases and it is absolutely devastating for the victims. I also know of one other case of a friend of a friend who tragically took her life because she worked in a small industry (not unlike F1) and was hounded out of it - after she made her formal complaint her boss twisted the process to clear him, fired her, and bad mouthed her to the other companies in that industry.

If Christian Horner is guilty then he has wrecked some poor girl's life, who from her texts was already battling some problems in her private life. His actions have put her at the centre of a media storm, put her in an untenable position in her job, and put this scandal at the top of Google search results if you search her name.

Think of all the other women in the industry who will be at more risk of similar occurring should Horner get away with this. It's declaring that this kind of behaviour is acceptable within the F1 paddock. Shame on anyone who tries to excuse his behaviour or dismiss its importance.

We still don't know what he did!! That's the thing.

If the Whatsapp messages are real, there is enough evidence of him being a "creepy boss" and perhaps a pervert, but not much more than that. Women actually encouter such behaviour quite regularly, life not exactly ruined. We need more transparency to see if this was something persistent, manipulative and burdensome. I am not absolving him of wrong-doing, just saying that the victim could have seen an opening and taken full advantage as well.

On the other side, he could have went much further than asking for photos and cocopuffs! lol It's a slam dunk now if there are photos of him putting his hands in places, and going out with this girl... And even then what if it was consensual? A lot of these things need to be ironed out.

Could be good to just keep it to the facts we have instead of making up things.

[myurr]

I actually think they are legit and that Horner should go. A quick google you can find AI tools to generate fake conversation. Without something fairly solid to back up their authenticity I’d say their grounds are pretty thin

Ask Horner directly if they are genuine or not, as there's at least two other copies of them - presuming neither party has deleted them. The victim's phone, and her friend to whom she forwarded at least one screenshot of messages at the time of the offence.

I doubt Horner would deny they're real lest it subsequently be proven they are real and he is shown to be lying to any investigation.

[myurr]

We still don't know what he did!! That's the thing.

If the Whatsapp messages are real, there is enough evidence of him being a "creepy boss" and perhaps a pervert, but not much more than that. Women actually encouter such behaviour quite regularly, life not exactly ruined. We need more transparency to see if this was something persistent, manipulative and burdensome. I am not absolving him of wrong-doing, just saying that the victim could have seen an opening and taken full advantage as well.

On the other side, he could have went much further than asking for photos and cocopuffs! lol It's a slam dunk now if there are photos of him putting his hands in places, and going out with this girl... And even then what if it was consensual? A lot of these things need to be ironed out.

Did you read through all the messages? They span several grand prix weekends, so this was over an extended period of time.

It appears to need repeating - the problem isn't if it was consensual at some point, the problem is she categorically withdrew that consent by asking him to stop and he did not. There was even a message alluding to the fact that he'd offered her a way out, but she says she doesn't want to leave her job.

He then avoided her, booking separate flights, different hotels, stopping her from doing her job. She flags that she cannot act as his travelling PA if they are in separate locations but asks him not to persist with his past behaviour. So they start working together again and he reverts back to being a sex pest and asking her to send him pictures again.

It is categorically against employment law to make putting up with sexual advances a condition for staying in your job. If it's not against Red Bull's policies then they would be highly deficient.

What part of that behaviour do you think can reasonably be explained as acceptable? Therefore Red Bull have questions to answer as to why they dismissed the victim's grievance. If you don't think that such behaviour can ruin lives I suggest you find a way of speaking to some of the victims, as it is absolutely harrowing to hear first hand how it can make people feel.

[maxxer]

We still don't know what he did!! That's the thing.

If the Whatsapp messages are real, there is enough evidence of him being a "creepy boss" and perhaps a pervert, but not much more than that. Women actually encouter such behaviour quite regularly, life not exactly ruined. We need more transparency to see if this was something persistent, manipulative and burdensome. I am not absolving him of wrong-doing, just saying that the victim could have seen an opening and taken full advantage as well.

On the other side, he could have went much further than asking for photos and cocopuffs! lol It's a slam dunk now if there are photos of him putting his hands in places, and going out with this girl... And even then what if it was consensual? A lot of these things need to be ironed out.

Did you read through all the messages? They span several grand prix weekends, so this was over an extended period of time.

It appears to need repeating - the problem isn't if it was consensual at some point, the problem is she categorically withdrew that consent by asking him to stop and he did not. There was even a message alluding to the fact that he'd offered her a way out, but she says she doesn't want to leave her job.

He then avoided her, booking separate flights, different hotels, stopping her from doing her job. She flags that she cannot act as his travelling PA if they are in separate locations but asks him not to persist with his past behaviour. So they start working together again and he reverts back to being a sex pest and asking her to send him pictures again.

It is categorically against employment law to make putting up with sexual advances a condition for staying in your job. If it's not against Red Bull's policies then they would be highly deficient.

What part of that behaviour do you think can reasonably be explained as acceptable? Therefore Red Bull have questions to answer as to why they dismissed the victim's grievance. If you don't think that such behaviour can ruin lives I suggest you find a way of speaking to some of the victims, as it is absolutely harrowing to hear first hand how it can make people feel.

Maybe it was some kinky fantasy of Geri teasing her husband and test him ? Maybe maybe.
None but absolutely none of the media outlets have certified these messages so lets stick to the simple facts

[mendis]

We still don't know what he did!! That's the thing.

If the Whatsapp messages are real, there is enough evidence of him being a "creepy boss" and perhaps a pervert, but not much more than that. Women actually encouter such behaviour quite regularly, life not exactly ruined. We need more transparency to see if this was something persistent, manipulative and burdensome. I am not absolving him of wrong-doing, just saying that the victim could have seen an opening and taken full advantage as well.

On the other side, he could have went much further than asking for photos and cocopuffs! lol It's a slam dunk now if there are photos of him putting his hands in places, and going out with this girl... And even then what if it was consensual? A lot of these things need to be ironed out.

Did you read through all the messages? They span several grand prix weekends, so this was over an extended period of time.

It appears to need repeating - the problem isn't if it was consensual at some point, the problem is she categorically withdrew that consent by asking him to stop and he did not. There was even a message alluding to the fact that he'd offered her a way out, but she says she doesn't want to leave her job.

He then avoided her, booking separate flights, different hotels, stopping her from doing her job. She flags that she cannot act as his travelling PA if they are in separate locations but asks him not to persist with his past behaviour. So they start working together again and he reverts back to being a sex pest and asking her to send him pictures again.

It is categorically against employment law to make putting up with sexual advances a condition for staying in your job. If it's not against Red Bull's policies then they would be highly deficient.

What part of that behaviour do you think can reasonably be explained as acceptable? Therefore Red Bull have questions to answer as to why they dismissed the victim's grievance. If you don't think that such behaviour can ruin lives I suggest you find a way of speaking to some of the victims, as it is absolutely harrowing to hear first hand how it can make people feel.

People should ideally put a disclaimer that they are basing their view point on material that is unsubstantiated. Until there is forensic verification, that material would be as true as it's false. Using such a material to regard someone as guilty is seriously naive take on someone's situation who might be as innocent as he is being charged as guilty. Don't ask if I have read those messages as I am not into fiction.