Former top jockey Danny Nikolic has again lost his right to attend racecourses after Victoria's highest court overturned a decision that a police ban against him was unlawful.
Last November, Chief Police Commissioner Graham Ashton banned Nikolic from entering racetracks during meetings.
Nikolic successfully challenged the decision in the Supreme Court.
The court quashed the ban in June, saying it was invalid because police had not given Nikolic certain details about adverse allegations against him that had led to it.
The Supreme Court held that Nikolic could have been given information without prejudicing confidential police sources, investigations or investigative methods.
But on Friday, the Court of Appeal ruled that police were not obliged to disclose this information to Nikolic.
Justices Chris Maxwell, Stephen Kaye and Robert Osborn said in a joint decision that the Racing Act gave the Chief Commissioner the legal power to ban people from racing venues "to ensure the integrity of horse racing" and, if necessary, to depart from the ordinary rules of procedural fairness "to protect highly sensitive intelligence or investigative processes of Victoria Police".
They said this described the type of information that had been withheld from Nikolic in this case.
The judges also said that the public interest in not disclosing the "sensitive information" meant there was no obligation to afford Nikolic procedural fairness in this way.
Justice Maxwell stressed that the court did not review the merits of the decision to ban Nikolic, only whether it was made according to law.
Nikolic's lawyers are understood to have seen the information, but have promised the court not to disclose it to others, including their client.
He will be required to pay the Chief Commissioner's legal costs for his Supreme Court challenge, but was on Friday granted a certificate of indemnity ensuring he will not have to pay the police's legal costs for the appeal.
Nikolic declined to comment outside court.
He is separately challenging in the VCAT Racing Victoria's refusal to grant him a jockey licence, since he was suspended from racing in 2012, for abusing steward Terry Bailey at a Seymour race meeting.
