Azeem Rafiq and Yorkshire CCC DCMS Hearings: Why truth must be sacrosanct over racism in cricket - Comment

And yet all of those consequences and more were laid at the door of The Yorkshire Post on Tuesday – and, by definition, at myself, the newspaper’s cricket correspondent – at the latest DCMS hearing into racism in cricket, where we/I were publicly denounced as “the voice of the racist”.

“If I was to pick one reason why all this has happened, unfortunately I’d have to say it was The Yorkshire Post’s writing,” said Azeem Rafiq, the former Yorkshire cricketer, to assembled MPs.

George Dobell, the senior correspondent at The Cricketer, and also the chairman of the Cricket Writers’ Club, dismissed me as “out of my depth” and said that we/I had “intimidated and bullied” Rafiq and Lord Kamlesh Patel, the Yorkshire chairman, and made “no attempt to even try and understand” the story.

Dobell, who has pushed the story from the start on Rafiq’s behalf, and who is writing a book with him that comes out in May, with a film deal in the pipeline from what Dobell said in the press box last summer, claimed that we/I had run “a campaign to discredit and intimidate”.

He added that we/I should “reflect on the fact that they have forced a whistleblower out of the country and his family”, saying: “I rather fear they think they are catering for their market.”

In my experience, even as someone hopelessly stranded on the ocean waves of journalism, there is not much more you can do with points like that except to underline them.

They speak for themselves - under the protection of parliamentary privilege, of course.

Now this may come as a surprise to Dobell, Rafiq and those who presided over the latest DCMS show trial, but I do reflect on this story - every day.

There is nothing whatever in it for me, let alone The Yorkshire Post, to take what Damien Green MP described as the “outre position”; indeed, Lord Patel and the club in general hadn’t been dealing with us/the media for months until the arrival of Stephen Vaughan, the new chief executive, who rightly saw through that preposterous policy.

No, I take it very seriously and have spent countless hours thinking, conversing, investigating and writing about this subject.

I have covered Yorkshire for almost 20 years and know the club and characters as much as anyone; I haven’t just walked in out of the shallow end.

And so I repeat - I don’t want racism. I don’t want people being forced to leave the country. I don’t want threats made against them or their families. I don’t want people defecating in their gardens. I don’t want people circling their houses with what look like chains in their hands. I don’t want any of those things.

But what I do want is to try to do the job of a journalist; I cannot be a cheerleader.

I must examine all aspects of a story; Rafiq’s allegations, by the way, and despite claims to the contrary, have been extensively covered in this newspaper, while we have been in regular touch with his PR team.

We have actually given voice to the other voiceless in this wretched business - the 16 Yorkshire staff sacked by Patel, for example, summarily dismissed for signing a letter that questioned Rafiq’s character and motives and warned of his so-called “one-man mission to bring down the club”.

Dobell told the DCMS it’s “incredible that anyone thinks they shouldn’t have been sacked”, despite simultaneously decrying the Squire Patton Boggs report upon much of which Rafiq’s claims to whistleblowing are based.

But what if those staff were right?

Kunwar Bansil, the former physiotherapist and a British Asian, said that he saw and experienced no racism at Yorkshire. Dr Mark Nesti, the club psychologist, said he thought that Rafiq had deliberately tried to “destroy the club, or certainly wreck it”.

Intelligent, respected people with counter opinions.

That is how The Yorkshire Post has undertaken its journalism since 1754, and I am committed to its historic high standards.

Of course, on Tuesday, there was no mention of the allegations made about Rafiq’s personal behaviour, most recently two counts of indecent exposure raised in HighCourt documents relating to the case of Wayne Morton, the sacked head of sports science and medicine.

What are we supposed to do, ignore them?

Pretend that they don’t exist?

Not suggest that such things might be factored in when considering someone’s character?

Rafiq’s PR team said that those allegations are totally untrue. Again, they were not mentioned, of course, at DCMS.

I described the latest DCMS hearing as a show trial, but that’s not strictly true.

It was a show trial with bells on - notwithstanding the absence of our old friend Julian Knight MP (we’d better not go there).

Indeed, anyone tuning in might have thought it was a hearing into regional newspaper journalism as opposed to racism in cricket, given that the main focus seemed to be our/my coverage.

Why was that?

It’s only a wild guess, but might it have something to do with the fact that we/I exposed the first hearing for the sham that it was, with leaked extracts from the Squire Patton Boggs report proving that Knight and his colleagues sat on key evidence, including the fact that Rafiq, in the opinion of investigators, did not lose his career at Yorkshire to racism at all.

The DCMS, its credibility at stake, its reputation on the line, seemed to be more concerned with trying to hurt The Yorkshire Post - perhaps smarting from more than one occasion when our fearless journalism has held the powerful in Westminster to account - than to eliminate racism.

Ditto Rafiq, who in turning his guns on The Yorkshire Post betrayed his own modus operandi, which, on yesterday's evidence at least, is to attack anyone and everyone who dares to offer other victims in this sorry story the opportunity to have their say.

Quite what good any of this is doing in terms of eliminating racism, incidentally, making cricket more inclusive and repairing the destroyed institution of Yorkshire CCC is unclear.

Rafiq says that little has changed overall since he raised his allegations, and although there is obviously much work to do, in my experience people are trying, they are listening, they are striving to be better.

But will he and his supporters ever be happy?

My guess is no. It suits them, in my view, to keep the criticism going.

I feel especially sorry for Stephen Vaughan, the new Yorkshire CEO and, on first impression, a good man, who cannot take the club forward as he would like with this shadow hanging over it, still.

It’s interesting, as I reflect that in the two-and-a-bit years of this horrible crisis, and despite all the words written and conversations held, my basic opinion has not changed one iota.

Was there at least some fire to go with the smoke of Rafiq’s initial allegations? Yes.

Has racism taken place at Yorkshire CCC in the past? Yes.

Has there been a problem with the language used in dressing rooms in cricket, and indeed in all sports? Yes.

Did Yorkshire CCC deserve to be brought down as it was, and for numerous people to be sacked or forced to resign? No.

I think it was an hysterical over-reaction, a miscarriage of justice.

This is a story of nuance, of context, of many different strands.

And, as history tells us, although there are sometimes adverse consequences that make us uncomfortable, truth must be deemed sacrosanct, and good, impartial, fearless journalism its protector.