Yorkshire reach out-of-court settlement with ex-medical chief Wayne Morton after being fired over sex scandal claims – with county’s compensation bill surpassing £2m for 16 unlawful staff sackings

Yorkshire has reached an out-of-court settlement with former chief medical officer Wayne Morton, ending an extraordinary legal battle involving baseless allegations that he had sex with a prostitute in the dressing room.

Mail Sport has learned that an agreement has been reached between Morton and the club following the intervention of new chairman Colin Graves in a deal that takes the club’s total damages for the unlawful dismissal of 16 staff above £2 million.

Morton sued Yorkshire for £569,000 in a breach of contract claim that has been ongoing since December 2021, when he was one of 16 members of the club’s coaching and medical teams dismissed via email by former chairman Lord Patel during a brutal purge of the club. employees who had expressed concerns about their handling of Azeem Rafiq’s racism saga.

Morton’s claim threatened to become an explosive legal case as Yorkshire had made a series of extraordinary allegations against him in their submissions to the High Court, including that he had ‘unprotected sexual activity and intercourse with a prostitute’ in the dressing room and had a ‘sexual relationship with a senior employee of the club.’

At a pre-trial hearing last month, Yorkshire reportedly withdrew these two allegations of sexual misconduct, as well as three other claims against Morton that the club used to justify his dismissal.

Morton sued the club for £569,000 after he was one of 16 people dismissed for raising concerns about their handling of Azeem Rafiq’s (above) racism allegations in December 2021.

Morton was also accused of covering up an alleged incident of indecent exposure by Rafiq during Yorkshire’s tour of South Africa in 2012, a charge both men have denied and withdrawn by the club.

The allegations against Morton were first taken to the High Court in 2022 and were endorsed in a statement of truth signed by then-chairman Patel, who resigned last March after a turbulent reign that cost the club millions and brought them to the brink of administration.

Yorkshire’s settlement with Morton will take the total cost of dealing with Rafiq’s racist abuse allegations at the club above £3.5 million. As well as ultimately admitting that the 16 dismissals were procedurally unfair, Yorkshire also spent hundreds of thousands of pounds on legal costs, and paid £200,000 to Rafiq in compensation.

Morton worked as a physio in Yorkshire for 38 years, having previously been part of the England medical team, but was sacked out of the blue along with five of his colleagues at the Pavilion Physiotherapy Clinic. The settlement agreed with Graves will be ratified at a meeting of the Yorkshire board later this month.

Yorkshire declined to comment.