Former New Zealand cricket captain Chris Cairns speaks to members of the media outside Southwark Crown Court in London yesterday. (Reuters)

By Ali Martin/The Guardian


The former New Zealand cricketer Chris Cairns has been acquitted of perjury and perverting the course of justice after a jury at Southwark crown court returned a verdict of not guilty yesterday.
Both Cairns and co-defendant Andrew Fitch–Holland, who had faced the latter of the two charges, will walk away free men following a nine-week trial in London that began on October 5, with the jury beginning their deliberations, lasting 10 hours and 17 minutes, last Tuesday afternoon.
Cairns said on the court steps that despite being found not guilty he felt his reputation had been “completely scorched” and that there was no longer a future for him in cricket.
“I think it would be pretty hard ever to go back into the game: there’s a lot of damage been done,” he said.
He added: “I think I’ve been through the mill and come out the other side and yes, I’m a very happy man.
“I don’t think it’s a victory as such because I don’t think in a case like this there are any winners. It’s been hell for everyone involved.”
Cairns, who won 62 Test caps and 215 in one-day internationals for his country from 1989 to 2006, was accused of lying under oath when he told a court in 2012, during a libel victory over the former Indian Premier League chairman Lalit Modi, that he had “never” cheated at cricket and would not contemplate doing so.
The 45-year-old was awarded £90,000 in damages as part of a £1.4m settlement that included legal costs after Modi, in 2010, had tweeted that the all-rounder had been removed from the auction list for that year’s tournament “due to his past record of match fixing” in the now defunct Indian Cricket League.
In order to be found guilty of perjury, the jury needed to be convinced that Cairns had in fact cheated during his playing career.
Both he and Fitch–Holland - a friend and former “legal adviser” - also faced a second charge of attempting to pervert the course of justice by seeking a false witness statement from the self-confessed match-fixer Lou Vincent for the original Modi libel case.
Justice Nigel Sweeney had previously instructed the jury that a not-guilty verdict was to be automatically reached should Cairns be acquitted of the first charge of perjury.
While the court heard evidence from more than 30 witnesses during the trial, that given by the former batsman Vincent, his ex-wife Eleanor Riley and the current New Zealand captain, Brendon McCullum, were central to the prosecution’s case.
The jury were told by Justice Sweeney, in his summing up last week, that they would need to believe at least two of the three in order to find Cairns guilty.
Vincent, currently serving a life ban from cricket for his role in match-fixing, had told the court that Cairns had given him “direct orders” to under-perform when playing for his Chandigarh Lions team and the World XI in the 2008 Indian Cricket League, an unofficial Twenty20 tournament.
The evidence of Riley, Vincent’s ex-wife, centred around her confronting Cairns about match-fixing on a night out in Manchester in June that year, when she said the former all-rounder assured her that “everyone did it” and they “wouldn’t get caught”.
McCullum meanwhile told the court that Cairns had flown to Kolkata on the eve of the inaugural Indian Premier League season in April 2008 and, during a meeting at the Taj Hotel, claimed that he outlined to him how periods of play could be fixed for payments of $70,000 to $180,000 per game and that “everyone was doing it”.
Cairns, according to McCullum’s evidence, explained the process as well as detailing how money could be transferred back to New Zealand via a property scheme in Dubai. McCullum told the court he declined the offer in a later telephone call, before telling Cairns he had not changed his mind during a meeting at a cafe in Worcester that year when New Zealand toured England.
The judge had instructed the jury to treat Vincent’s testimony with caution due to his own history of corruption in cricket, while reminding them that Riley’s evidence originated from an evening in which alcohol was consumed.
The jury were also advised that it was up to them to decide whether differences in the three statements given by McCullum over time – two to anti-corruption officers and one to the Metropolitan police – were a result of him changing his version of events to serve his own interests or a product of recalling further detail.
The International Cricket Council responded to the verdict with a brief statement, saying: “The ICC notes the decision of the jury finding Mr Chris Cairns not guilty and confirms its utmost respect for the process that has been followed.
“The ICC and its anti-corruption unit will continue to work closely with and provide all possible support to players in order that the fight against corruption can be tackled effectively and collectively.
“The ICC will not make any further comment on this matter.”