NRL Integrity Unit to interview husband after complaint about Cowboys alleged cover-up
The NRL Integrity Unit is to interview a disgruntled husband a year after he complained about the methods employed by the Cowboys to cover-up an alleged affair between his wife and a player.
NSW
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The NRL Integrity Unit will meet on Monday with a disgruntled husband who claims his explosive complaint about his wife’s sexual tryst with a player in a toilet has been ignored.
The meeting comes more than a year after the man lodged his complaint alleging North Queensland Cowboys general manager Peter Parr gave him prescription medication to help him deal with his wife’s affair. Mr Parr denies the claim.
The man also claims he was provided with a false medical certificate by club doctor Chris Ball.
The AHPRA is investigating but no adverse findings have been made.
The nine-page complaint, lodged with the NRL Integrity and Compliance Unit on October 14, 2019, by lawyer John Sneddon, lays out “a course of conduct” which the man claims was designed to shield the Cowboys player from public scrutiny.
The NRL Integrity Unit strongly denies ignoring the man’s complaint and has provided six dates between November 20, 2019, and March 13, 2020, when they wrote to the complainant seeking further information and consent to speak with relevant authorities.
“The NRL has been in regular contact with the complainant since receiving a complaint in October 2019,” the integrity unit said in a statement.
Mr Sneddon dismissed the NRL’s version and said they only contacted him in the wake of recent unrelated allegations involving former South Sydney star Sam Burgess.
“From the outset, they have been obsessed with speaking to the police to see if the police are conducting an investigation as well,” Mr Sneddon told The Sunday Telegraph. “To our knowledge, no police file has been opened. My client has not provided a complaint to the police. We have repeatedly objected to their obsession with speaking to the Townsville police as some sort of precondition to them conducting an investigation.”
At the Blues Origin training in Wyong on Sunday, Parr, the NSW team manager, declined to comment given the NRL investigation is ongoing.
NSWRL chief executive David Trodden supported behind Parr, saying the manager had briefed him some time ago.
“The allegations are of a historic nature which are nothing to do with NSWRL and no doubt are now being investigated by the NRL Integrity Unit,” he said.
“It doesn’t impact on his obligations with the NSWRL nor him to discharge his duties.”
According to the complaint the man’s wife, who worked for the Cowboys, was on an away game trip to the Gold Coast in August 2018 when she allegedly had sex with the player at the team hotel. Two days later, they again allegedly had sexual intercourse in a public toilet in the Qantas club at Brisbane airport before departing for Townsville. The man has found Facebook messages between the pair and his wife admitted to an ongoing affair with the player, according to the complaint.
One of the messages said: “I see why (your husband) gets jealous, you taste so good.”
The man confronted his wife, who he claims admitted to the affair, and he left the family home, spending nights in his vehicle.
On the night of the toilet incident the man received a text message from Parr, then further messages in September – one inviting him to stay at his home.
He claims Parr observed that he “looked like he needed a rest” and offered him diazepam, (Valium) to help him cope.
He claims Parr gave him two tablets on September 5 and another two on September 6.
The man says he was subjected to a work drug test on September 18, where traces of Valium were found in his system.
The man claims Parr then arranged for Dr Ball to provide a letter “falsely asserting he had prescribed the medication”.
The doctor’s letter states he had consulted the man on September 5 and prescribed Valium to help him sleep.
The man claims he never met or spoke to Dr Ball about a medical condition. The man claims that although Parr seemed initially supportive of his situation, in hindsight he was trying to keep him close to minimise the risk of disclosure.
He also claims that on September 8 Parr inadvertently sent him a text meant for his estranged wife, in response to the fact they would not be reconciling saying: “Thank f--k.”
The man sent a text message, obtained by The Sunday Telegraph, to the player’s wife saying “no one but you could understand how I’m feeling”.
“I have lost everything my wife, family I feel so worthless after what they have done but to know that they will still see each other at the club is so hurtful for me.”
Sources say the matter was so serious the Cowboys sought legal advice about the prospect of terminating two employees. The Cowboys issued a statement saying they were co-operating with the NRL and providing support to the parties involved.