REB

There's a coach called Mark Thompson in some other sport (swimming i think) whose name has come up in the last few weeks in relation to some fairly dodgy behavior with his students, and he may have been charged.

Just as well you're keeping an eye on things Fred - that's how nasty rumours start isn't it? :)

Neither Mark nor Thompson are what you'd call rare names, so it's not a cast iron certainty the stuff Chrisso's hearing and that article are both about the same bloke, but it makes enough doubt for all of us to think hard before saying too much.

Don't worry Fred, I'd never say anything that could get us in trouble. This site features prominently in Google searches for some reason so there is a chance that if someone said something out of order may get them in some bother. Important to be careful on the net these days.

I'm certain that what I have heard has not been mixed up with any other Mark Thompson. It's probably all Chinese whisper stuff anyway, just wondering if anyone else has heard the rumour.

Not directed at you Chrisso. And you're right, it most likely is Chinese whispers. But whoever first heard it and passed it on, long before it hit your radar, most likely wanted it to be Bomber, because that would give his little titbit more flavor, and wouldn't have bothered checking (which you were doing) because accuracy might not have been what he was most concerned with.

And names do ring big bells. The day after the Bali bombing in 2002 I was listening to the ABC news and they had gotten hold of an eye-witness account from the BBC from an 'English businessman' who had the same south-coast accent as my father's rellos and, I realised when the ABC newsreader back-announced it, the same name as my cousin.

Although there was no way he would have gone to Bali without also wangling a visit to Oz, and he wasn't strictly a 'businessman', until I heard categorically from England two days later that my cousin had not left the country, I was convinced that he had been the bloke that had missed the bomb by less than a hunderd metres. Just on the strength of the name.