A far more stringent code of conduct will be imposed on England rugby union players after a judge announced yesterday that he had fined two squad members who were at the centre of rape allegations on last month’s tour to New Zealand.

Judge Jeff Blackett, the Rugby Football Union’s disciplinary officer, made public the names of four players involved in the incident at an Auckland hotel in which two admitted that they had sexual relations with an 18-year-old woman, who went on to claim to police that she had been raped. However, Blackett ruled that, in the absence of any testimony from the complainant, he accepted that Mike Brown and Topsy Ojo had "consensual relations" with the woman at different times in the same hotel room. Two other players, David Strettle and Danny Care, were exonerated over the incident, which tarnished the tour and the image of English rugby.

At the conclusion of his 7,000-word report, Blackett said that Brown, the Harlequins full back, has been fined £1,000 and Ojo, the London Irish wing, £500, for staying out all night after the 37-20 defeat by the All Blacks at Eden Park on June 14, and which led to Brown being late for a physiotherapist’s appointment the next day.

Both were reprimanded by Blackett and warned to avoid compromising situations that could bring rugby into disrepute. The same warning was given to Strettle, the Harlequins wing named in a Sunday newspaper in connection with another woman that weekend, but he was cleared of misconduct, as was Care, the Harlequins scrum half, who was capped for the first time on the tour.

Crucially, Blackett found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing but said that there is "clearly a need for a tighter rein on players when they are on England duty and they all need to be given clear guidelines about the limits of acceptable behaviour. This is most important in relation to very young players who do not yet have the life skills to cope with sudden stardom."

Blackett recommended that future codes of conduct should:
- Warn players about potentially compromising situations that may become public;
- Prohibit players from taking unknown guests to the team hotel without the management’s approval;
- Set limits on the amount of alcohol a player may drink and make clear the limits of post-match entertainment.

The RFU management board has agreed that the recommendations will be implemented.

The judge reserved much of his ire for "inaccurate and speculative" reporting of what occurred and for Chapman Tripp, the Auckland firm of solicitors that released a statement to the local media stating that a young woman invited back to the England team hotel by a player had been "sexually violated" by four members of the team. No formal complaint has been made by the woman, who chose not to be cross-examined by Blackett or legal representatives of the four players because of the impact that would have had on her private life.

Unable to test her allegations, Blackett has accepted the accounts of the four players involved and concluded that the case was no more than "errors of judgment by young players on their first or second major international tour which are insufficient in themselves to effect future England selection". That will come as a relief to the quartet, of whom Care was named by Martin Johnson, the England team manager, in the elite player squad last week, while the other three were included in the England Saxons squad.

Ojo, 22, who scored two tries on his debut at Eden Park, issued a statement through his club regretting the circumstances that gave rise to the RFU investigation. "Now that his name has been cleared, he wishes to draw a line under the matter," it read.