Cricketer Alex Hepburn has been banned from the sport for 10 years after serving just 30 months of his five-year jail sentence for rape.
The 28-year-old professional athlete, who was born in Australia but played for Worcestershire, was jailed in 2019 after committing the rape by creating a group chat for a “sex conquest contest”.
Following an appeal in 2020, his conviction for the attack inside a Worcester apartment was upheld, but he was released in 2021.
This year, the Cricket Regulator charged Hepburn with two breaches of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) Directives 2017.
The independent Cricket Disciplinary Commission decided to hand Hepburn a ten-year ban after he failed to respond to the breaches.
Cricketer Alex Hepburn (pictured) has been banned from the sport for 10 years after serving just 30 months of his five-year jail sentence for rape.
A picture from the custody of cricketer Alex Hepburn, who was found guilty of raping a woman in 2019
Hepburn (left) is led out of Hereford Crown Court in 2019 after being jailed for five years for raping a woman.
The rapist will also have to undergo “appropriate professional treatment” related to the events that led to his conviction.
In addition to this, he will be required to take “training and education courses” before it is possible to return to cricket. The sun reported.
The ban does not affect Hepburn’s ability to play cricket in Australia, where she currently lives.
In 2019, Hepburn’s former teammates Joe Clarke and Tom Kohler-Cadmore were charged by the ECB with bringing the game into disrepute after being part of the WhatsApp group. They were not charged with any criminal offence.