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RFU 'pressured players to pay $30,000 to silence hotel maid'
Three players felt they were being blackmailed as RFU sought to protect its reputation, not theirs
ANOTHER black day at Twickenham. Three England rugby players accused by a hotel chambermaid of verbal sexual harassment during the recent World Cup campaign in New Zealand were allegedly pressured by the Rugby Football Union to find NZ$30,000 between them to buy her silence.
That is the latest claim to come out of the leaked reports into the World Cup fiasco seen by The Times.
The $30,000 was intended to persuade Annabel Newton not to go to the papers with her story that James Haskell, Dylan Hartley and Chris Ashton (above) had lured her into a hotel room in Dunedin in September where Hartley, she claimed, asked for "an Aussie kiss" (oral sex), causing her to flee in tears.
As the Times reports today, the three men refused to pay up. They admitted making an inappropriate joke, for which they apologised. But they insisted they had done nothing wrong "and were in effect being blackmailed to prevent a scandal undermining England's campaign".
One of the players is quoted - anonymously - in the Rugby Players' Association report, one of the three confidential reports seen by The Times. He says: "Two days before the Scotland game, WC [understood by The Times to be Will Chignall, the RFU's head of media] says you've got 24 hours to decide whether to settle with the girl for NZ$30,000 or not. Paying the money seemed to be the advice. Another option wasn't really given.
"We refused to pay because we hadn't done what she claimed we had done. So we went to find our own lawyers in NZ because we felt the RFU QC was interested in defending the RFU's reputation rather than ours."
Annabel Newton did indeed take her story to the papers – she chose the Sunday Mirror – where her account duly created more unwelcome headlines following the reports of Mike Tindall's infamous meeting with a blonde in a nightclub.
In the end, however, Annabel Newton's story was found wanting. Haskell had filmed the hotel encounter on a camera. Far from leaving the room traumatised and in tears, Newton was seen with her thumbs up and smiling. New Zealand police found there was no case to answer.
On their return to England, Haskell and Ashton were warned about their future behaviour and given suspended fines of £5,000 each by the RFU. Hartley was exonerated. ·
