Et was just after 2pm local time when an announcement came over the crackling loudspeakers at Southwark Crown Court on Friday midday. The jury will announce its verdict in courtroom number three.
A verdict that could soon turn one of the world’s most famous German sports stars into a prison inmate. For the past three weeks, Boris Becker has had to come to the clinker building, which is a few hundred meters from Tower Bridge, almost every day of the week. Hand in hand with his partner Lilian de Cavalho Monteiro, always with enough time to join the safety line. The eldest son Noah was always at his side for the last four days of the trial. Like everyone else, Becker bought his coffee from the stand in the foyer and smoked a cigarillo outside in the cold London wind.
But Boris Becker is not like everyone else. “I’ve seen him play twice at Wimbledon,” says the officer, who screens visitors with a metal detector. He looks troubled. In four out of 24 charges the jury found Leimener guilty Friday afternoon. The judge will only announce the sentence on April 29th. Up to seven years in prison would have stood on the entire catalog of charges.
The four counts in which Becker was convicted are tough
Becker will not get that much. But British observers aren’t ruling out the possibility that the 54-year-old could face a painful sentence. “Judges take cases like delayed bankruptcy very seriously. Prison sentences that they order should always act as a kind of deterrent for others to respect the procedures,” said Tristan Kirk, a senior court reporter for London’s Evening Standard.
The father of three sons and a daughter now has to hope that judge Deborah Taylor doesn’t make an example of him. Taylor is not an unknown lawyer in the kingdom. In the spring of 2019, she sentenced Wikileaks founder Julian Assange to 50 months in prison, almost the maximum possible sentence. Assange blatantly violated his bail conditions because he hid in Ecuador’s embassy for seven years, Taylor justified the high penalty at the time.
Becker was declared bankrupt by the High Court in London in June 2017 and should have disclosed all private assets. The four counts in which the former tennis pro was convicted are tough. It has been proven that he diverted 427,000 euros and transferred it to third parties, apparently including his two ex-wives Barbara and Lilly. He did not disclose ownership of a property in Leimen. He also concealed a loan of EUR 825,000 from a bank in Liechtenstein and shares in a data company worth EUR 75,000.
“You want to play the ignorant here?”
The jury followed the arguments of prosecutor Rebecca Chalkley. At the beginning of this week, the prosecutor calmly but brutally dismantled Becker during cross-examination. Becker repeatedly asserted that he had been given the wrong advice and had blindly trusted lawyers. He didn’t read the documents properly, and the insolvency administrators recorded the discussions with him incorrectly. His English was probably not good enough for the complex allegations. “You want to play ignorant here?” Chalkley approached Becker at one point. “This is not correct,” was Becker’s standard mechanical reply.
In her closing argument, the prosecutor reminded the jury that Becker “already burned his fingers in Germany”, with reference to the 2002 conviction in Munich for tax evasion: Nevertheless, he did not disclose this time either, “because he knew that he the money then loses. ”She was very satisfied with the verdict, Chalkley said after the announcement on Friday afternoon.
However, the jury apparently also took the arguments of Becker’s defense attorney Jonathan Laidlaw to heart in their verdict. The lawyer had appealed to the jury’s will to be fair: “Some of you will remember 1985. When an unseeded 17-year-old became the youngest Wimbledon winner. What wasn’t just a sporting triumph – it was also a German who stole the heart of the British.”
After the verdict, Becker leaves the court with his girlfriend and son
As a result, Becker’s life became one that was also controlled by consultants who did not always have the best in mind. “We all know people, even family members, who have great talents – but are completely hopeless when it comes to money and don’t think things through to the end.” But that’s not a crime.
Becker should have known before the trial that his actions would have serious consequences. In Great Britain, the courts are comparatively conciliatory with debtors who cooperate in the insolvency proceedings. Insolvency requirements are then lifted after one year. In Becker’s case, however, the insolvency authorities had raised the deadline for him to twelve years in October 2019, until 2032. His behavior prompted the authorities to take this step “to prevent Mr. Becker from causing further damage to creditors,” as it was said at the time .
After the verdict on Friday afternoon, Becker left the court with his girlfriend and son and got into a white taxi. Eyes lowered, avoiding eye contact like he had been doing for the entire three weeks. He did not want to comment. Becker is not allowed to leave the country until the sentence is announced in three weeks, and he even had to hand in his passport.
