Former Hammer Carlton Cole was unable to deal with letters because of his lack of education, a court has heard today.
The 31-year-old former Hammer was due to appear on Wednesday to reopen a case which saw him banned from the road for the third time in three years. Cole’s lawyer insisted he wasn’t aware that he was due to attend court and pleaded guilty by post.
Barrister Asam Khan, representing Cole, said: “Someone who does not have GCSEs would not be as au fait with dealing with letters as someone who has had a university education.”
Cole has been without a club since he was released by West Ham at the end of last season when his contract expired.
In 2012 former Hammers manager Harry Redknapp famously told police “I can’t spell and I write like a two year old, I have never written a letter in my life.”
Redknapp said at the time: “I am completely and utterly disorganised. I am not going to fiddle taxes, I pay my accountant a fortune to look after me. I can’t work a computer, I don’t know what an email is, I can’t, I have never sent a fax and I’ve never even sent a text message. I have a big problem, I can’t write so I don’t keep anything. I am the most disorganised person, I am ashamed to say, in the world.”
Poor excuse for a bloke who always sounds pretty articulate. If this was any of us, we’d get the book thrown at us.
I couldn’t stand him as a player and now I don’t think I like him much as a man, either.
Strange how a guy who managed to negotiate complex multi-million contracts suddenly can’t recognise a Court Summons.
Perhaps they should have tweeted it to him 😉
You get an option to plead guilty by post and if you do that you don’t have to attend court. That’s how it works.
Perhaps after three bans in three years the court didn’t give him the option of pleading by post. He always seemed to be able to read the tweets to him on twitter. Maybe the court should have tweeted him.
With his money, his office should handle his mail etc. No sympathy.
I think it’s no surprise to have it confirmed that Carlton is not the sharpest knife in the box, modern players have Agents to read the long words and organise their lives – it’s when their big earning days are over and the Agents are no longer interested in them that you worry for their futures!
Good luck to Carlton, let’s hope he can keep to the straight and narrow!