Twists, turns and licensed to thrill
A HALF-NAKED hooker, bundles of cash, diamond deals gone wrong, drugs, cheating, lying, alcohol and scalps – it sounds like the latest Bond movie Spectre , in fact it’s the Chris Cairns perjury trial.
Showing for free in London’s Southwark Crown Court, the opening three weeks in the cricketer’s trial have had as many tweaks and turns as a Shane Warne over, with flippers, zooters, googlies and a few wrong’uns being bowled by the lawyers.
In its efforts to prove Cairns lied under oath in his 2012 libel trial when he said he’d ‘‘never’’ cheated at cricket, the evidence has crisscrossed the globe – to India, England, New Zealand, South Africa and Bangladesh.
Defence lawyer Orlando Pownall, QC, has surmised there are dark forces aligned against Cairns, more than once alleging collusion by players, officials and anti-corruption investigators to claim his ‘‘scalp’’. Cairns has denied all charges. Just when it seemed the the initial fire had gone out of proceedings since Lou Vincent, Brendon McCullum and Elly Riley were dismissed from the witness box, along came Daniel Vettori to complete this week’s evidence.
He told Southwark Court Crown he asked Cairns to get him a US$15,000 ($22,175) diamond in India, but the jewel never arrived, he had to wait two years to get his money back, and when it came it was in cash.
While the money to buy the diamond was owed Vettori for a toothpaste promotion he and Cairns had done, the former New Zealand captain was prompted to mention it to International Cricket Council (ICC) anti-corruption investigator John Rhodes.
‘‘It was a fairly innocuous situation,’’ Vettori said, saying it happened after the 2006 Champions Trophy, at a time he was getting engaged.
After McCullum had reported Cairns to Rhodes in 2011, Vettori said he felt ‘‘it would be prudent’’ to report the diamond incident, even though he had been unconcerned about it in 2006.
Vettori was repaid in England in 2008, about £9000 in £20 notes. Rhodes told the court he was unconcerned by the transaction.
He had been in Nagpur when McCullum in 2011 reported to Rhodes that Cairns had talked to him about spread betting, which is related to spot-fixing.
Vettori said McCullum had first told him on a team bus in Bangladesh in 2010, of the alleged approach.
Under cross-examination by defence lawyer Orlando Pownall, QC, he told the court he had been mistaken, and it was in 2008 in Bangladesh. New Zealand toured Bangladesh in October in both years.
McCullum and fast bowler Kyle Mills later met with Vettori, in the captain’s hotel room.
‘‘Brendon said Chris Cairns had asked him to spot-fix on two occasions,’’ Vettori told the court.
McCullum alleged Cairns had said ‘‘all the big boys were doing it’’. ‘‘I felt shocked, but shock turned to anger. It undermined all the hard work that was going on by the team,’’ Vettori said.
‘‘Chris was one of my best friends in cricket, he was a mentor to me. To feel Brendon was put in that situation . . . I was stunned.’’
After an anti-corruption talk to the New Zealand team by Rhodes, McCullum opted to come forward.
New Zealand cricket selectors were aware of match-fixing rumours swirling around pace bowler Daryl Tuffey, a team-mate of Cairns at Chandigarh in the 2008 Indian Cricket League (ICL), where outed match-fixer Lou Vincent opened the batting.
They selected Tuffey anyway, Vettori told the court.
Vettori said rumours were ‘‘coming back’’ to New Zealand about the Chandigarh trio.
But defence lawyer Orlando Pownall, QC, asked how it was that the New Zealand selectors still picked Tuffey after 2008. He had been selected in 2009-2011.
‘‘We couldn’t not select him on the basis of rumours,’’ Vettori told the court. Tuffey’s name had been discussed in relation to the rumours by selectors, he said.
There were no notes, and those discussions had been more informal one-on-one conversations between individual selectors, Vettori told the court.
He said he was sure his memory was correct. ‘‘I didn’t make a mistake about that,’’ he said.