Yorkshire reach deal over physio’s £500k legal claim
SPORT INVESTIGATIONS REPORTER
The return of Colin Graves to Yorkshire has coincided with the county finally ending a £500,000 legal battle with their “sacked” medical chief that included lurid accusations over the Azeem Rafiq racism scandal.
The club have agreed an out-ofcourt settlement with Wayne Morton, the former England physiotherapist, whose claim for breach of contract was the last outstanding case to be brought over the county’s crisis.
Yorkshire had torn up their contract with Morton’s Pavilion Physiotherapy Clinic during the then-chairman Lord Patel’s purge of staff who had raised concerns about the club’s handling of Rafiq’s racism complaints.
It has been only since the return to the board of proposed new chairman Graves last week that a “consent order” has been issued by the High Court, heralding the end of the legal fight.
The county had made a series of accusations against Morton, laying bare the lengths to which the Patelled county were apparently prepared to go to in order to see through a cull that could end up costing them £3.5million in legal fees and severance payments.
Patel resigned almost a year ago, paving the way for Yorkshire chief executive Stephen Vaughan to launch peace talks with Morton, who has been fighting to clear his name since his removal more than two years ago.
Among the allegations made against him, which were branded “false”, “untrue”, “baseless” and “wrong” in his lawsuit and “scurrilous” by the man himself, were that he “engaged in unprotected sexual activity and intercourse with a prostitute who then also engaged in sexual activity with at least one other senior member of staff at the club”.
Yorkshire’s defence to Morton’s claim for damages totalling £559,776.66 plus interest also doubled down on accusations that Morton “personally orchestrated” an infamous letter sent to their board complaining of Rafiq’s “one-man mission to bring down the club”.
Morton, whose links with Yorkshire go back to the 1980s, denied leaking the letter about Rafiq or that its contents gave any grounds to terminate his contract.