MP calls for Bill on boxing

Ingle gets attention in between rounds at Sheffield

Labour MP Paul Flynn has called for a Bill that could see boxers charged with assault or manslaughter if their opponents are seriously injured or killed.

Health Secretary Alan Milburn has already stated that the Government will resist calls for boxing to be outlawed in the wake of the life-threatening injury suffered by Paul Ingle.

But Flynn, who is also calling for a ban on blows to the head in the sport, claims the proposed Bill would not seek to outlaw boxing.

One neurosurgeon has claimed that 80% of all boxers have brain scarring as a result of the cumulative effects of blows

  Labour MP Paul Flynn

"At present if boxers kill or seriously maim their opponents in the ring, they cannot be charged with assault or manslaughter because they have a defence that they were acting within the rules of the sport, the MP for Newport West said.

"My Bill will remove that defence."

He continued: "Boxing is unique in encouraging blows to the head. A boxer can receive hundreds of blows to the head in a single bout.

"As an enthusiast of the sport for many years, I can't bear to watch it now. I don't think we will have boxing in 50 years' time. I think the sport will die of shame."

Flynn's comments followed Milburn's earlier calls for every effort to be made to make the sport safe.

"This is a terrible situation and all of our thoughts are with Paul Ingle and his family. Let's hope he makes a full recovery as soon as possible," said Milburn.

Cumulative

Ingle is fighting for his life after undergoing brain surgery to remove a blood clot following his IBF featherweight title fight against South African Mbulelo Botile at Sheffield.

The 28-year-old Yorkshireman remains in a critical situation in the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield.

Every time someone is hit on the head they get a minor degree of brain injury

  Vivienne Nathanson

Vivienne Nathanson, of the British Medical Association, has called for a complete ban on boxing.

"There are occasional tragedies like this one where someone is killed or critically injured, but there is in addition to that the chronic problem that every time someone is hit on the head they get a minor degree of brain injury," she said.

"That becomes cumulative and we can't repair the damage to the brain. In the extreme you get severe Parkinson's disease or punch-drunk syndrome.

"We think that the sport needs to be banned completely, because there is no safe form of boxing."

Nathanson dismissed the value of the inquiry currently being carried out by the boxing authorities into the Ingle fight.

Brain damage

"What they are looking at is whether medical treatment was administered quickly enough and whether the fight was stopped early enough," she said.

"The fact is that once the damage is done, you can't repair it anyway."

Maloney is against use of headguards

There have been renewed calls for professional boxing to follow the amateur line and introduce headguards, but Ingle's manager Frank Maloney and Olympic gold medallist Audley Harrison are against that idea.

"I believe headguards could be a hindrance because you don't always see the punches coming. You still get hit and it still rocks the head," said Maloney.

Harrison added: "Statistics actually show that headguards, while stopping superficial injuries like cuts to the head, don't prevent you from getting knocked out."

Element of risk

Spencer Oliver, who needed brain surgery himself after collapsing at the end of a fight in 1998, says there will always be risks.

Oliver receives treatment after collapsing

"Boxing is a lot safer than it was five years ago," the former European bantamweight champion stated.

"But there is always going to be that element of risk. That's what excites people."

Colin McMillan, the secretary of the Professional Boxers Association, said that a boxing match without blows to the head would be like a Formula One race with a 50mph speed limit.

"It is sometimes hard to justify boxing, and when you see something like Saturday's case, you ask yourself is it really worth it?" he said.

"But it is a great character builder, it instils discipline, respect, inner motivation - there are so many positive sides which actually outweigh the negative sides."

Simon Block, general secretary of the British Board of Control, believes boxing is always unfairly criticised compared to other sports.

"To say it should be banned when there are far more dangerous sports out there is ridiculous," he said.

"I didn't hear much from the British Medical Association when five people died three-day eventing. That is a very dangerous sport.

"This is something that always comes up after an incident like this but there's no intellectual or scientific evidence to back it up."