WHITEWASH!

Final review into cycling’s bullying is watered down

A diluted report into claims of bullying and discrimination at British Cycling forced an independent panel to deny it was a ‘ whitewash’ yesterday amid further accusations of cover-ups at the crisis-hit governing body.

On another hugely damaging day for Britain’s most successful Olympic sport, the review highlighted claims of a ‘culture of fear’ inside the organisation.

Panel chair Annamarie Phelps admitted GB cyclist Jess Varnish had every right to be unhappy

Accusations of bullying have all gone

about the handling of her case after she responded to her dismissal from the world class programme by levelling a series of allegations against former technical director Shane Sutton.

‘If I was Jess Varnish I’d be very upset that the process was not satisfactory,’ said Phelps.

British Cycling is now bracing itself for a legal challenge from Varnish, particularly after chairman Jonathan Browning’s insistence that she was removed on performance grounds. Varnish has monthly appraisals that her camp claim refute that view.

But the most startling aspect of yesterday’s media conference was the contrast between the final review and the leaked draft written in February and obtained by Sportsmail in March.

In the draft, BC’s board was heavily criticised for its ‘ inept’ handling of the Varnish case and accused of ‘sanitising’ the internal report compiled by independent board director Alex Russell.

The draft also said the board had ‘reversed’ Russell’s findings in upholding only one of Varnish’s nine complaints against Sutton, who quit last year after he was suspended pending an investigation.

‘The actions of the BC board are shocking and inexcusable,’ it said. ‘They also call into serious question whether the board is fit to govern.’

That paragraph has gone from the final report and the tone has changed significantly. It was revised after receiving responses from Sutton, Sir Dave Brailsford and the board during a process of ‘ Maxwellisation’ which gives those criticised the chance to challenge findings before publication.

Words like ‘inept’, ‘sanitised’ and ‘reversal’ had been removed, and the reason why Varnish was sacked had changed. The draft report said: ‘It was on balance an act of retribution and also not contractual due process.’

The final report states: ‘ The panel did not view her removal as an act of discrimination but . . . it did not follow contractual due process.’

Clearly they no longer consider Varnish’s sacking as an ‘ act of retribution’ after she and Katy Marchant failed to qualify for the team sprint at last summer’s Olympics.

Yet the process by which the board upheld only one of Varnish’s nine complaints against Sutton could yet come under further scrutiny.

Some believe that Bob Howden, the BC president, acted alone in informing Varnish and Sutton that he was guilty only of using discriminatory language with terms like ‘ sheilas’ and ‘bitches’.

Jonathan Browning, who was an independent board member before he became chairman in February, refused yesterday to explain how the board arrived at one out of nine when the review maintains that Russell recommended that ‘considerably more allegations’ . . . ‘be found proven’.

Asked specifically about a letter Howden sent to Sutton and Varnish informing them of the findings, Browning said: ‘ That was signed off by Bob and I don’t have a specific recollection of whether that was circulated to the board.’

Accusations of ‘bullying’ had also disappeared. There had been reference to ‘ fear and bullying from leadership figures’. The final report references only ‘a sense of fear’.

Phelps claimed the ‘ tone’ had not changed, even if the wording was different. Yet the final report says only that ‘many referred to a culture of fear in terms of retribution or losing employment’. Previously it had said there ‘was and remains a culture of fear’. It was no longer a statement of fact but simply one of the allegations made after receiving 108 written contributions and conducting 44 interviews.

The verdict on Sutton has also been toned down. It was originally said he simply lacked the skill-set to lead the team. Now it is merely the opinion of ‘numerous contributors’.

Phelps denied that the report had been watered down. ‘I don’t believe there has been a whitewash,’ she said. ‘There has been strong criticism and clear recommendations. And I don’t believe there has been a shift in tone. It is just semantics. I accept some of the emotive language was removed, but that was due to the Maxwellisation process.’

The independent report concluded that ‘good governance was lacking’, with Sutton operating within a ‘power pocket’.

Concerns about the culture of British Cycling were first raised in a report written by former chief executive Peter King in 2012 but a request by UK Sport to receive a copy was ignored by Ian Drake, the then BC chief executive, who has stood down since the controversy erupted last year.

UK Sport chief executive Liz Nicholl took responsibility for not insisting she receive a copy of the report even though she complained that a detailed email from Drake did not include the most important information. ‘We should have pursued that and acquired a copy,’ she conceded.

‘The only information that we had was one line within a report, “behavioural issues from time to time”.

‘If we’d demanded the report, we would have had information about the significance of the cultural challenge within the programme and would have addressed that.’ Nicholl added that UK Sport would not conduct a ‘root and branch review of culture across the high-performance system’.

Within the draft report were allegations about the finances at BC, which in turn prompted the board and UK Sport to order a ‘special review’ conducted by external auditors.

That review, also published yesterday, concluded that ‘no evidence of fraud or corruption was identified’, and added: ‘There was no evidence that UK Sport-funded equipment had been stolen and sold for personal gain by an employee’.

Further to that there was an allegation that a member of staff decorated a rider’s house in office hours for monetary gain. The review concluded that the work was carried out over the course of two Saturdays and that the ‘employees concerned received a crate of beer as thanks’.