Scott Fitzgerald: Boxing champion's fall from grace due to drink and drugs laid bare as he is jailed for grievous bodily harm

Today, as he sits in a prison cell, talented boxer Scott Fitzgerald has plenty of time to reflect on how he let the chance of global stardom slip through his gloves.

In 2019 the British super-welterweight champion was on a trajectory for a world title shot. But the Covid pandemic interrupted his journey and, without the chance to ply his trade in the ring, Preston's biggest boxing hope for decades turned to drink and drugs to numb the frustration.

In the dock at the city's Crown Court this week Fitzgerald cut a sad and despondent figure as he pleaded guilty to inflicting grievous bodily harm on a man outside his local pub. A judge was told he had spent that day drinking and smoking cannabis and was "worse for wear."

During the hearing the full facts behind the fighter's catastrophic fall from grace were made public for the first time. The inner demons that caused his downfall were laid bare. Here was a man who had let it all slip in spectacular fashion, who had self-combusted and lost his biggest fight of all - against himself.

Yet there was also hope, however slim, that given the fact he was now "clean" after six months in prison awaiting trial, he could still recapture what he had lost. At 31 it may be a forlorn hope - he still faces two more visits to court on other matters - but it is a chance all the same.

Fitzgerald's decline into a spiral of violent and erratic behaviour was graphically outlined by his defence barrister Ayaz Qazi. While the story unfolded his parents and sister sat silently in the public gallery, showing a family support which has never wavered, despite his troubles.

Mr Qazi refused to blame the pandemic for setting his client on the path to self-destruction. Instead he concentrated on the fighter's battle with alcohol and, more latterly, recreational drugs. He said Fitzgerald, unlike many men coming before the courts for violence, had shown no signs of what was to come until well after adolescence. He was 23 when he first came to the notice of the law for causing criminal damage. There were driving offences in 2020 and also an allegation of rape in April that year, a charge he is set to challenge in the same court in August. And then came the claims of violence in late 2022 - three allegations of assault which he will face in Preston Magistrates Court on June 2 and the GBH for which he was given 46 weeks in jail this week.

Mr Qazi said offenders who were sentenced for violent conduct tended to present with symptoms of criminal behaviour in early or late teens. That had not been the case with Fitzgerald. So what had triggered it?

"There are no excuses for the behaviour that Mr Fitzgerald comes before the court for today," he said. "But it is a tragedy for someone who in 2014 won a gold medal at the Commonwealth Games fighting for his country and who subsequently managed to achieve success as a professional boxer. He is unbeaten in 15 professional fights.

"With all that in his armoury and the prospect of a glittering career ahead of him, why has violence travelled with him into the public domain? But when one combines the cocktail of drugs and alcohol - and there is a dependence on drugs - it leads to such erratic, out-of-character, spontaneous behaviour. That is the trigger that has caused the chaos in recent times. I am not going to blame the pandemic. But when you are in the throes if a career and you are as successful as he has been and then down come the shutters in relation to your career because of the pandemic, you have a further cocktail of spare time and free and easy access to drugs."

Mr Qazi said that after watching CCTV footage of himself on the night of the GBH offence - where he knocked out a man and broke his jaw with a single punch - Fitzgerald had been "utterly aghast and ashamed" of how he had behaved in a "loutish and disorderly" manner. He said with the skills he had as a boxer he could easily have caused far more harm than just a solitary punch. His fists had earlier been described in court as "weapons" yet he had shown some measure of restraint.

"You would expect someone with his sporting talent to behave like a role model," he added. "He is remorseful and he has got to change. Otherwise all those glittering prospects have diminished and are fading. The British Boxing Board of Control have already revoked his licence. So if he is in the throes of having any prospects of rehabilitation then he has to change. The only person who can help Scott Fitzgerald is himself. He has got a very supportive family. His parents and sister are here in court. They are troubled by his behaviour. Just before his last fight his father had real concerns about his health, which must have been conditioned by the intoxicants he had been taking. But he is now clean after being in custody. He presents in sober terms as a pleasant, understanding individual. There have been intoxicant-free periods in his life and the last six months (in custody) has awakened him to the prospect of an intoxicant-free life."

Mr Qazi said that the last few years had "damaged" Fitzgerald. But he was still confident of rebuilding his career. The real fight for him would be if he was going to be able to "regain that standing in a professional sense".

Judge Richard Archer sentenced Fitzgerald to 46 weeks in prison, but said that because of the six months he had already served on remand, there was a chance he could be released quite soon.

He told him: "You would be wise to consider how you spend your free time - particularly when under the influence of alcohol and drugs and particularly as you value the opportunity of regaining your professional career. You may consider whether it is wise to visit the public house, or any public house, when you are displaying the way you were that evening."

Fitzgerald has won all 15 of his professional fights - 10 of them by knockouts. He won the WBA international super-welterweight title in March 2019 and then the British title in October 2019. But due to the pandemic he could not return to the ring until May 2021 when he beat Frenchman Gregory Trenel, stopping him in the third round.