The offices of the British Horseracing Authority are less than a mile from London’s Theatreland but it will be staging the hot production this afternoon.

Like the denouement of an Agatha Christie thriller, the verdict in the Jim Best rehearing, the trainer who was banned for four years only to have that penalty quashed, will be delivered by the three-man disciplinary panel in person to Best and the media.

This is an unprecedented step, apparently at the request of the panel, as opposed to their verdict being posted online in the usual manner. It may appear a touch melodramatic but also seems in keeping with a case that has also lurched between slapstick and farce since Best was first charged in January.

Best, a Lewes-based trainer, denies instructing a jockey, Paul John, to stop two horses, Echo Brava and Missile Man, from running to their potential in races that took place last December. He was originally found in breach of the Rules of Racing in April only for that verdict to be set aside the following month.

The BHA was left red-faced after they were forced to admit that the independent panel chairman, Matthew Lohn, had carried out legal work for the BHA worth more than £50,000, a state of affairs that had been previously commented upon by those who had dealings with their integrity department.

Hardly the ideal background for the chairmen of an independent panel and it gave rise to claims of an appearance of bias in favour of the BHA. Perhaps they had been so busy throwing the book at Best they had forgotten to take a look at the one marked “dictionary”?

Furthermore the appeal board detailed defects in the first panel’s reasons behind their guilty verdict.

“The disciplinary panel’s reasons were clearly insufficient to support its decision,” the appeal board concluded. “The reasons do not make it apparent to the parties why one has won and the other has lost because they do not deal adequately, or in some significant respects at all, with the evidence and arguments presented on behalf of Mr Best.”

Tellingly, the appeal board criticised the first panel for dealing in what they described as “a cursory fashion” with evidence presented in order to cast doubt on the credibility of John, the sole witness against Best. The appeal board added its surprise that there was no reference in the original decision regarding an exchange of emails between lawyers acting for John and for the BHA that led to the jockey giving evidence against Best. “These were clearly of potential relevance on the issue of Mr John’s credibility,” the appeal board said.

One root-and-branch review of their procedures later, the BHA went into to bat again in a week-long hearing which concluded a fortnight ago.

Best’s legal team brought in former top jockey Tom Morgan as an expert witness to suggest that John had claimed he had been told to stop both horses to cover up the incompetence of his riding. While the panel – chaired by the former judge Sir William Gage, along with former amateur jump jockey William Norris QC and Nicholas Wachman, a former senior steward of the Turf Club in Ireland – might not have been easily won over by that argument there is also the question of why John has regained a jockey’s licence after claiming to have stopped two horses?

The BHA insist that no deal was done with John in exchange for his evidence against Best, the jockey has already been granted an amateur’s licence, the punishment for his part in the alleged offence having been limited to a six-month period during which he was not allowed to apply for a licence.

John was never formally banned from the sport and when he applied for his licence this summer, his case was not even referred to the BHA’s licensing committee.

The panel was told of the existence of an email from Paul Beeby, the BHA’s head of investigations, to Adam Brickell, who served as the regulator’s integrity director until September, regarding John. “Mr John is getting more difficult to keep on side,” Beeby wrote. All of which does hints the ends justifying the means even if that means allowing a jockey to carry on riding after admitting to an act that should end his career.

The BHA’s disciplinary panels have reached their judgments down the years based on the “balance of probability” rather than the level of evidence which would be required by criminal law.

Now that practise will be put to its sternest test. Best may be the one in the dock but this panel’s verdict may be just as much of a judgement of the BHA’s procedures and how they are exercised.

So take your seats ladies and gentlemen, the show is about to begin.