Help Brenton Rickard to recover legal fees

Hi my name is Kerrie Beitzel and I am hopeful that you will help Brenton Rickard recover some of his legal fees for as stated below:

Wrongfully charged, cleared and left with the legal costs.

Brenton Rickard is a young man with a wife and two young children that gave his all in representing Australia at the highest level in swimming.

He was wrongfully accused of taking a non-approved diuretic and spent 19 months fighting the case from when he was first notified until the case was dropped, in the meantime costing him his home and life savings and most importantly his reputation.

He has now been left with massive legal costs for a situation that should never have happened and Brenton has received no compensation financially or emotionally from this nightmare from the authority that wrongfully accused, charged and then dropped his case and charges against him.

He has said that he had to contest the accusations as it not only affected his name and reputation but also the names and reputations of his fellow swimmers. He has also stated that as a result of the time fighting this "there is a part of his life that he has lost".

Please help Brenton by contributing to this cause to help Brenton and his young family get back on their feet.

More details are as follows:

In early 2020 Australian Olympic Swimmer Brenton Rickard was wrongfully accused of taking a non-approved diuretic drug following retesting of a sample provided at the 2012 Olympic Games. Although the drug is non-performance enhancing it was still banned. He protested his innocence but was advised to plead no contest as the chances of proving his innocence so long after the event were negligible and the legal costs of fighting his case would be enormous. However if Brenton could not prove his innocence the Men’s medley relay bronze medal would be stripped from the entire team and Australia would lose their very proud record of never having had a medal recalled because of doping violations. So Brenton decided he had no alternative but to fight to prove his innocence. Fortunately in late August of 2021 the Court of Arbitration of Sport dismissed the charges against him and the Men’s Medley relay medal was saved but unfortunately he was left with a huge legal bill which is an enormous cost for the father of 2 small children who has seen his income decline markedly over the last eighteen months since the charges were first laid.

Brenton has represented Australia with distinction from 2003 until his retirement in 2013 giving many people enormous joy as he won 2 Olympic silver medals at the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the bronze medal at the 2012 London Olympics, a gold medal (and World record) and bronze medal at the 2009 Rome World championships. He has secured 3 gold, 2 silver and 3 bronze medals for Australia at Commonwealth Games, a gold, a silver and a bronze medal at the 2007 Melbourne World Championships and a silver medal at the 2011 Shanghai World Championships as well as numerous Australian Championships etc.

It is so sad to see that someone who represented Australia with such distinction and was so well respected by his team mates wins his case but in effect loses as he is left with a huge legal bill to prove his innocence. Please show your support for Brenton by helping to pay the legal bills that were incurred in his fight for justice.