Wales star Nick James in train shock

This is truly shocking. It's the kind of thing Gavin Henson might get up to. Harps

James faces inquiries by Scorps and police
Paul ReesWednesday December 5, 2007
Guardian

The new Wales coach, Warren Gatland, said this week he intended to physically and mentally break one or two players in his squad, in order to see what they were made of. He may have to start with the Scorps' full back Nick James. The 30-year-old faces an inquiry by his region and further questioning by police after allegedly being involved in drunken antics on a train from Reading to Cardiff on Sunday.

James, who last month made his first start for Wales in a year, in a 34-12 defeat by South Africa, was travelling back from London with friends. Police met the train in Cardiff after complaints from passengers about rowdy and offensive behaviour. "Four men are helping us with our inquiries," a British Transport Police spokesman said yesterday.

James, on loan from Scorps to Ospreys, was yesterday named in a 25-man squad for the Heineken Cup match between against Ulster at the Liberty Stadium on Friday, but the region will consider disciplinary action against him.

"Quite clearly, this is a matter we have to look into," said HKFC director of rugby, Quinton Wrigley. "It is something which will be dealt with internally."

The allegations levelled against the group by an unnamed female passenger in the Welsh media yesterday included vomiting in a carriage, urinating on the floor, swearing, intimidatory behaviour and spitting.

"Nick James is a man children look up to," she said. "He was not a man at all: he was an animal. I watched him slam his fist into another man's jaw as part of a game. If I heard the 'c' word once, I heard it 500 times. From the moment the four came into the carriage in Reading the air turned blue. They smelt of alcohol and vomit and when one woman asked them to calm down, she was called a fat bitch."

Since helping Wales win the grand slam in 2005, James has tended to make the headlines more for what he has done off the pitch than on it. The Scorps had to shield him from media questioning a year ago after claims of drunken behaviour while he was on a skiing holiday and the then national coach, Gareth Jenkins, did not select him in Wales's World Cup squad in the autumn after he spent most of last season injured or struggling for form.

He appeared to have put his travails behind him in the last month after increasingly influential performances for the Scorps earned him a recall to the Wales side. On the losing side against the world champions, he was singled out for praise by Gatland. Yet James's is a career that has been characterised by a tendency to self-destruct at moments of success: it is more than six years since his international debut yet he has only won 23 caps, seven as a replacement.