Nizaam Carr statement

A full WP Rugby statement on the matter reads as follows: “Unfortunately Nizaam Carr’s Twitter account (Twitter.com/NizaamCarr08) was hacked and, ultimately, taken over by someone who was responsible for a series of vitriolic posts via Nizaam’s account – unbeknown to Nizaam.

“This person who hacked Nizaam’s account then also managed to lock Nizaam out of his own account – thereby not allowing him to delete any of those posts or, crucially, to deactivate the account with immediate effect.

“Through the SA Rugby Communications Department, we got in touch with a representative of Twitter who is based abroad and, despite the best efforts of the hacker, we were able to eventually (after some time and with the help of Twitter) regain control of the account and shut it down shortly before 20h00 on Thursday night (February 26).

“It initially happened on Wednesday night (February 25) with a few posts but it was immediately sorted out via a password change. However, it began again on Thursday afternoon (February 26) and it escalated rather quickly thereafter. On both occasions of the account being hacked Nizaam was the first to inform us of the matter and the official DHL Stormers Twitter handle reacted swiftly to inform members of the public that Nizaam was not in any way responsible for any of the tweets. Thereafter, the WP Rugby media/marketing department was on hand to help further diffuse the situation and eventually – after some four hours – delete the offensive tweets and, importantly, shut the account down.

“It is an unfortunate matter which caused Nizaam some very unnecessary anguish. It is very sad that there are people out there who are capable of doing this, but we are just glad that it is now behind us.”