A draft contract for a proposed private promoter of the TT was ’incoherent in places’ and ’not fit for purpose’, taking no account of the impact on other government costs and services.

And Chief Constable Gary Roberts was so concerned at the lack of focus on safety he withdrew from the motorsport group.

These were among some of the revelations that emerged today as senior government officials and the Chief Constable gave evidence to the Tynwald committee investigating the Vision Nine affair.

Tynwald approved the appointment of Vision Nine as independent promoter in April last year.

But just seven months later the Department of Economic Development announced it was discontinuing the tender process.

Giving evidence to the committee today alongside Gary Roberts were DHSC chief executive Malcolm Couch, DoI chief executive Nick Black and Home Affairs chief executive Mark Kelly.

Mr Black said when Vision Nine boss Julian Topham gave a presentation to the motorsport group on April 5, 2016, just two weeks before the Tynwald vote, it was ’the first time we were aware how much operational delivery was going to be outsourced.’

Mr Roberts said he was ’perturbed’ at the absence of focus on safety. He decided to withdraw from the motorsport group to ’put some distance’ between the Constabulary and the organisation in case ’we had to investigate it’ in future.

The officers only saw the draft contract in an email attachment from the DED on April 29.

But the committee was told that the DED had wanted the contract to be signed before TT 2016.

The Chief Constable said: ’When I saw the content it was very clear it was not fit for purpose.’

Mr Couch said the contract in his view was ’very poorly drafted’ and ’incoherent in places’.

He said its focus was ’almost exclusively on DED’ and referred only to the costs borne by that department.

Mr Black said he was concerned that the promoter was going to be rewarded without taking into account the costs of delivering the event.

He questioned how anyone could know if this was a commercially viable contract unless you knew the net costs.

And he suggested the contract, which was drafted without the involvement of the AG’s chambers, was written with a ’limited understanding of motorsport issues’.

The witnesses raised concerns about the ability of the island to cope with the tens of thousands of extra TT visitors that Vision Nine had wanted to attract.

Mr Roberts said: ’No one had asked what the implications were of having a TT bringing 60,000 people. I would have needed to bring in 57 extra officers.’