THE doctor at the centre of Britain’s “Bloodgate” scandal has recalled how a British rugby player shouted at her to cut him.
This was so that he could continue the pretence he had been injured on the field.
Wendy Chapman, 46, described tension in the Harlequins’ dressing room after Tom Williams, the wing, had bitten into a theatrical blood capsule and left the field to yells of “fake”.
She told a General Medical Council fitness-to-practise panel in Manchester yesterday that it was her most stressful situation in a career spent in accident and emergency medicine.
The player had raised his voice as he repeatedly demanded that she cut him. The ruse, orchestrated by Dean Richards, the Harlequins director of rugby, was designed to get a recognised kicker on to the pitch in the dying moments of a Heineken Cup quarter-final against Leinster on April 12 last year. It failed as the Irish side ran out 6-5 winners.
Dr Chapman said through tears: “It was completely the wrong thing to do but, yes, I did it. I do not know why. I remember the extreme pressure.”
She said she had been suffering from depression, her job as a hospital consultant was in turmoil, and she had had an MRI scan the results of which showed she was suffering from breast cancer.
The doctor, who had a mastectomy five weeks ago, admitted she lied to the European Rugby Cup hearing in July last year. She insisted then she had found a jagged-edge wound in the player’s mouth. Dr Chapman revealed she quit her job at Maidstone Hospital in July, and is now unemployed.
Ian Bell, the Harlequins performance coach, described the drama when two match officials entered the physio room. One of them wiped his hand on the player’s leg and concluded “this is not blood” before leaving. Bell said: “Tom got off the bed and said, ‘Wendy, you’re going to have to cut me. This is serious and we’re going to be in trouble’.”
The player then pulled his lip down in front of her and demanded “cut it, cut it”. “She went to cut his lip but could not because her hand was shaking so much, she could not do it,” Mr Bell said.
The hearing continues.
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