* Three England players were caught up in allegations of sexual allegations during their 2008 tour of New Zealand.
* The group was later cleared, with Danny Care writing in his new book they had to answer a “pack of lies”.
* Long-time England halfback reveals facing the haka “put the fear of God into me”.
* Hits out at how Kiwi-born ex-Crusaders halfback Willi Heinz was able to play for England, effectively taking his spot for the 2019 Rugby World Cup.
England rugby star Danny Care has opened up about being accused of sexual assault while on tour in New Zealand; including the moment police officers took him and three team-mates aside at Christchurch Airport.
The veteran England halfback was one of four players investigated by police for an alleged sexual assault on a young woman who had met team members in the hours after a test lost to the All Blacks in Auckland in 2008.
No charges were ever laid and the players all denied any wrongdoing.
An investigation by the Rugby Football Union later found two guilty of misconduct – one for being out late, and another for missing a rehab session. Another was warned of the perils of putting himself in a potentially compromising position, while Care was cleared of any wrongdoing.
Now in his new book Everything Happens for a Reason: My Life in Rugby – released in the UK on Thursday – Care has written of his shock at being pulled aside, with a trio of squad mates – when the team landed in Christchurch on their next stop on the tour.
When he saw a “gang of police officers” standing in the arrival area Care wrote he was “wondering what the hell was going on”.
The four were then “taken aside, pulled into a room and informed that someone had made a very serious allegation of sexual assault”.
“All the blood seemed to drain from my body, even though I knew I’d done nothing wrong,” Care wrote in Everything Happens for a Reason.
“I’d been on such a high after making my England debut and now this was happening. Talk about crashing down to earth with a thud.
“When the police spoke to me on my own, they told me that the girl had accused two boys of sexually assaulting her while two other lads watched.”
Care told police he had seen the girl when he went into a team-mate’s hotel room the morning after the Eden Park test, then when “she appeared in the lobby”.
“I left that meeting thinking it was all nonsense.
“I thought, ‘None of us has done anything wrong, so everything will be okay’, which was exactly what a naive 21-year-old would think.”
Care said that it was decided that in the lead-up to the second test – a match which Care started and England lost 42-12 – the names of the players alleged to have been involved would not be made public.
In the build-up to the test, RFU director Rob Andrew – standing in as head coach on tour for Martin Johnson – addressed the media and said the team would assist the police investigation.
No one from the playing unit would respond to the claims.
“And while it had quickly been established that the girl’s story was a pack of lies and the RFU was confident no charges would be bought against us, our names were inevitably leaked following the second test,” he wrote.
One tabloid paper ran an article calling the group “The Auckland Four”.
“I wished I could just speak to the media and explain what had and hadn’t happened,” Care wrote in Everything Happens for a Reason.
“It was a horrific situation.
“Before the Sun ran their story, the management told me I was going to be named, having previously told me I wouldn’t.
“So I had to make a heartbreaking phone call to my mum and explain that I was about to be accused of sexual assault in a national newspaper. She believed me when I told her I hadn’t done anything wrong, but her life was turned upside down and she was worried sick.
“Hearing her so upset was probably the worst part about the whole episode.”
The case against the England players was later dropped, with no formal complaint being laid.
But the ramifications continued for some of the players linked to the allegations.
The RFU investigation found Mike Brown and Topsy Ojo guilty of misconduct – Brown for the missed rehab appointment, and Tojo for staying out till 7am – and being fined.
David Strettle was told of the potential perils of being put in a compromising situation. And Care was found not guilty of any misconduct.
RFU disciplinary officer Jeff Blackett said on the release of his probe: “I am confident that lessons have been learned and that players will understand that they must be extremely careful in future not to open their personal lives to public scrutiny in this way”.
Ojo never played for England again.
“For me and many other players, that tour was a crash course in what it took to compete at the highest level,” Care wrote in Everything Happens for a Reason, published by Ebury Spotlight.
“In short, when we made mistakes, the All Blacks always punished us.
“But the most traumatic lesson on that tour wasn’t delivered by Carter and co., it was handed out by the media and had nothing to do with what happened on the pitch.”
Care had made his England debut off the bench in England’s 37-20 first-test loss at Eden Park.
He wrote how he was later presented his test cap, before being “plied with drink” on the team bus back to their hotel.
“We then hit the town, drank even more, and I ended up going home with a girl, quite a lot earlier than most of my team-mates because I had consumed a few beers.”
The woman Care returned to the hotel with was not the one who later went to police.
When he arrived at the planned team rehab session the next morning he had no idea of the scandal that would engulf the England team.
“It sounded like a good time had been had by all – lots of drinks, lots of fun, nothing illegal,” Care wrote. “I didn’t think any more of it until I got off the plane in Christchurch and clocked a gang of police officers.”
Making his test debut in the opening clash of England’s 2008 tour from hell to New Zealand wasn’t the only first for Care.
It was also the first time in his career that he had faced the haka.
And Care – who went on to play 101 tests for England before announcing his international retirement earlier this year – reveals in Everything Happens for a Reason that standing on the Eden Park turf and watching the haka was something that would stay with him forever.
“The next thing I remember, I was standing on the pitch watching the All Blacks do the haka – Nonu, Carter, McCaw and the rest of them screaming at me with their eyeballs on stalks,” he wrote in his book.
“Whenever I’d seen the All Blacks doing the haka on TV, I’d thought it was cool; just a dash of culture.
“But now I was experiencing it from a few yards away, I thought, ‘Why are they allowed to do this? They look like they want to rip our heads off and we haven’t done anything wrong. We only came here to play a game of rugby against them. It’s ridiculous. What am I doing here?’
“Players usually claim the haka doesn’t bother them, but they would say that, wouldn’t they? I don’t mind admitting that it put the fear of God into me.”
Excelling in a Rugby World Cup was a dream for Care.
In 2011, he was cruelly forced out of contention for selection at the New Zealand-hosted tournament by injury.
He played one test in the 2015 tournament during the pool-play phase; by which time England were already out of contention of making the quarterfinals.
Four years later he was upbeat that he would feature among the three halfbacks England’s brash Aussie coach Eddie Jones would select.
But he revealed the writing was on the wall for him during a one-on-one meeting with Jones – who now coaches Japan – and told he was considering up to five halfbacks.
“Then he said, ‘And Willi is also in the mix’,” Care wrote in Everything Happens for a Reason.
‘Who’s Willi?’, I asked. ‘Willi Heinz, mate,” said Eddie. ‘Oh,’ I said. That was the end of our meeting.”
Christchurch-born Heinz debuted for the Crusaders in 2010, but would move to England five years later.
He qualified for England via an English grandmother, an eligibility rule that riled Care.
“I walked out of that meeting feeling quite stung. I’d only ever wanted to play for England; that was my dream from the time I started playing the game seriously,” he wrote.
“I’d given blood, sweat and tears for the England team for over a decade. And now Eddie was considering a lad who had spent the first 26 years of his life in New Zealand, dreaming of playing for the All Blacks.”
Jones later called Care while the veteran halfback was on holiday with the news he was “going in another direction” and Care wouldn’t figure in his Rugby World Cup squad.
He confided in Everything Happens for a Reason he was “lost for words” when he later found out Heinz had been picked in the spot he had been chasing.
He said he had nothing personal against Heinz, but believed he was a better player than the Kiwi.
He said other England-born-and-bred halfbacks – who had given their all from a young age in the country but missed selection – also “deserved it more than Willi”.
“I couldn’t bring myself to watch any of their pool games, and I secretly hoped that Willie Heinz would come on for a late cameo and sustain a minor injury,” Care wrote.
“Nothing major, obviously, perhaps just a dead leg or a tweaked hamstring. Awful, I know.”
Neil Reid is a Napier-based senior reporter who covers general news, features and sport. He joined the Herald in 2014 and has 30 years of newsroom experience.
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