Geoff Boycott's reputation is in tatters after the French judge upheld his conviction for assaulting Margaret Moore.

And the reputation of Yorkshire people isn't looking too good, either. As an ambassador for his county, Boycott has left a lot to be desired.

It can't have been easy for the judge in this case - or for any judges in any cases in which they find themselves confronted with two people contradicting each other's stories.

If they both produce convincing witnesses in support of their claims, who do you believe? It's obvious that one of the parties in the case is telling a load of porkies. But which one could it be? How do you decide?

Presumably you have to fall back on your instinct, on your own personal assessment of the characters of those involved. Judge Dominique Haumant-Daumas had to decide whether Miss Moore was a vindictive woman scorned and out for revenge, or whether Boycott was a bully who lashed out when provoked.

She obviously decided that when it came to characters, the one possessed by Geoff Boycott made him perfectly capable of giving his girlfriend a good thumping.

It's not hard to understand why she came to that conclusion. Boycott put on an appalling performance. He did himself no favours at all. All that bombast and bluster and outbursts of temper might have been reasonably well received in some parts of his home county.

Good old plain-speaking, straight-talking, single-minded Geoff, telling those Froggy lawyers to shut up. We Tykes don't put up with any of that foreign nonsense, do we? And fancy putting him up there in front of a woman judge! There was no way he could expect a fair hearing, was there?

That was the attitude Boycott typified throughout and after the trial. Ludicrously, he complained because the proceedings were conducted in French.

What did he expect in a French court? English, no doubt, with the odd "sitha" thrown in to make him feel even more at home. He angrily interrupted Margaret Moore's barrister.

It was not the conduct of a "perfect gentleman" - the image which, the judge said, he had tried to portray and which he had rounded up a collection of old friends to support. It was, in fact, the conduct of a bully who lashes out (albeit only verbally in court) when provoked.

If Geoff Boycott's intention was to present himself as the perfect gentleman, he managed instead to put himself across as a perfect prat.

He'll have to do a lot better in terms of self-control, when the case comes to appeal, if he's to stand any chance at all of restoring his reputation and, with it, something of the reputation of Yorkshire (the county, not the cricket club), let alone of proving his innocence.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.