Yorkshire confirms information associated to racism ‘irretrievably deleted’

The Yorkshire County Cricket Club has confirmed that paperwork associated to allegations of racism and its responses to these expenses had been “irretrievably deleted”, which might be prejudicial to the curiosity of the sport within the nation.

Pakistan-born cricketer Azeem Rafiq, who performed for Yorkshire for greater than 10 years, had claimed that racism on the membership had left him on the point of suicide. He later deposed earlier than the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee (DCMS) within the UK, detailing his ordeal when he was on the membership and the way institutional racism was rampant there.

Yorkshire eliminated a majority of its teaching and administration workers within the aftermath of the allegations and Lord Kamlesh Patel took over as chairman of the nation aspect and caused quite a lot of important modifications to counter racism.

“It has been reported in a number of news outlets that, in relation to the Cricket Discipline Commission (CDC) inquiry, the Club has admitted a charge of deletion of data and documents,” learn a press release issued by Yorkshire on Thursday following an uproar within the media over the deleted information.

“After 5 November 2021, it was discovered that emails and documents, both held electronically by the club and in paper copy, had been irretrievably deleted from both servers and laptops and otherwise destroyed.

“The CDC proceedings are ongoing and, as such, we are limited as to what we can say at this time. After a thorough independent investigation it was established that the deletion and destruction of documents date from a time period prior to the appointment of Lord Patel and relate to the allegations of racism and the club’s response to those allegations.” Yorkshire added that it was not sure why and the way the deletion occurred and who was accountable for the act.

“The Club is not prepared to conjecture publicly as to why this occurred, who was responsible or the motivation for doing so. The ICO was of course informed of the position at the time of discovery, and no further action was taken.” The assertion stated the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) had been apprised of the destruction of knowledge, which had stated it might be prejudicial to the pursuits of the sport.

“The ECB was also informed of the position, which led to a charge being brought on the basis that the conduct (deletion/destruction) may be prejudicial to the interests of cricket and/or which may bring the ECB and/or the game of cricket into disrepute. The Club has admitted this charge, as there was no viable defence in these circumstances.”