Chris Cairns is a free man.
The 45-year-old was acquitted of perjury late last night by a jury that had considered verdicts for 10 hours and 17 minutes following a marathon trial lasting eight weeks.
The New Zealand cricket legend and his friend Andrew Fitch-Holland were also acquitted of perverting the course of justice.
• Dylan Cleaver explains one of the most intriguing chapters in NZ sports history • Single sheet of A4 printer paper and call sparked investigation • The ICC and the wow moment of the case • READ MORE: Cairns' fury at NZ Cricket's snub to Lance
For Chris Cairns to beat the charges of perjury and perverting the course of justice that were levelled at him over the past couple of months, his advocates had to convince a jury that those accusing him of trying to fix games were complicit in a web of deceit.
While the outs and considerable ins of the legal manoeuvring game remain a mystery to many, to decide whether they believed Cairns was innocent of match-fixing, and therefore perjury, the jury had to consider the following:
• Whether Lou Vincent, who the defence spent the best part of two days reducing to a hapless buffoon, was capable of engineering a multi-stranded conspiracy against the all-rounder;
• Whether Black Caps captain Brendon McCullum lied or misinterpreted conversations with Cairns to enhance some nebulous "Brand McCullum";
• Whether Vincent's ex-wife, Ellie Riley, McCullum's teammates including Kyle Mills and Daniel Vettori, Indian Cricket League (ICL) players like Andre Adams and Shane Bond, and even the Herald (see footnote) were all somehow pawns in a game played by some as yet unspecified "dark forces".
In the end, the jury either didn't find Vincent to be a credible witness or accepted the tenet that reasonable doubt must precipitate a not guilty verdict.
It was clear from his summing-up that Justice Nigel Sweeney found former New Zealand international Vincent to be unreliable. Almost by default, then, Riley's evidence became weak due to her then-relationship with Vincent. For now, this is the only irrefutable fact that matters: Cairns strode out of Southwark Crown Court a free man and a vindicated man.
This is the inside story of one of the most intriguing chapters in New Zealand sports history.
Cryptic phone call
It started with a cryptic phone call and a long, late-spring drive in 2013. Upon arrival I was handed a single sheet of A4 printer paper with four numbered lines of text and an explanatory note.
They were lines that would become all-consuming:
"1. The ICC ACSU is currently in New Zealand completing an investigation into match fixing. "2. The investigation is historical in nature. "3. It is not related to international cricket. "4. It does not involve any current players. "The ACSU is the ICC Anti-Corruption and Security Unit."
We chatted a bit longer - me trying to chip around the edges for names and facts, them stonewalling and reiterating the importance of confidentiality. The best I must have been able to coerce was the fact it was a "multi-jurisdictional" investigation, because I defiled the piece of paper with that singular notation.
I knew I needed a corroborating source before I could contemplate writing a story and on the drive back to Auckland started formulating a plan about who to approach and when.
Global cheating ring
Rumours had been swirling about the possible involvement of New Zealanders in match-fixing for some time. But by the end of 2013 the cricketing world seemed to have moved on and there was no sense anything was about to break.
Cairns had left the diamond trade in Dubai to return to New Zealand with wife Mel. He had won a high-profile libel case against Lalit Modi, the former boss of the multi-million dollar business that is the Indian Premier League, after the latter tweeted that Cairns was not considered for that tournament because of alleged match-fixing in the ICL.
Cairns probably thought that was the end of that, but two things were happening concurrently that would conspire to throw his life into turmoil: Lou Vincent, a former ICL and New Zealand teammate, was secretly purging guilt for his role in match-fixing around the world, and Cairns was added to the Sky TV cricket commentary team.
As we now know, Vincent was implicating himself in a global cheating ring, of which he alleged Cairns was a significant part. Vincent chose first the offices of the New Zealand Cricket Players' Association (NZCPA) to unload. The manager of the NZCPA, Heath Mills, referred Vincent to John Rhodes, the area investigator for the ACSU.
If Vincent's testimony was to be believed (and the jury in London obviously decided it wasn't) then the news that Cairns was part of the Sky coverage team was disturbing. Cricket bosses here and overseas - New Zealand Cricket (NZC) would have been informed by the International Cricket Council's anti-corruption unit of Vincent's allegations - were suddenly faced with the prospect of an alleged match-fixer fraternising with players at the team's hotel.
With the benefit of hindsight, I believe it was the desire to force Sky's hand and remove Cairns from the commentary circuit that hastened the investigation.
'Difficult situation'
Dunedin, December 4, 2013.
New Zealand are in a dominant position against the West Indies. Ross Taylor and McCullum put on 195 for the fourth wicket and the former moves serenely on to his maiden test double century when I finally receive the email I have been waiting days for.
It is from an impeccable, well-placed source and it cautiously corroborates the information I had already been given. It is time to approach NZC chief executive David White.
"It's a difficult situation," he says over the phone that evening. "New Zealand Cricket is aware the ICC is investigating some former New Zealand cricketers. Unfortunately, we are not in a position to comment further."
We don't have names (though by this time I am 90 per cent certain I know them) but it is enough to publish.
Everybody wants names. NZC holds a stand-up press conference before play starts on the third day of the test against the West Indies, where White can add virtually nothing to what he has already told me.
Surprisingly quickly, the Daily Mail's cricket writer Lawrence Booth drops the names of Vincent, Cairns and medium-pacer Daryl Tuffey around midday NZT. They match the ones I believe are being investigated. A source confirms and the Herald quickly follows suit.
Media record Chris Cairns during a press conference at Auckland Airport in May 2014. Photo / Getty Images
Vincent must have known it was coming. He is the first to issue a statement: "I wish to let everyone know that I am co-operating with an ongoing ICC anti-corruption investigation that has been made public today ... I am unable to make any further public comment."
I approach the commentary box to seek Cairns for comment but Craig McMillan - now New Zealand's batting coach, then a commentator - tells me I'm too late, Cairns is in a taxi on his way to the airport.
Sky confirms that Cairns has left. A media scrum awaits at Auckland airport and he says his "heart sank" when he found out about the claims.
"With regards to what's happened, I've said I've been through a very arduous process in England last year, that's on record, and I stand by that, and with regards to what's occurred now, I'd just like to reiterate the fact I've spoken to nobody."
This would become a common complaint of Cairns. On February 9, 2014, the day New Zealand pulled off a brilliant victory over India at Eden Park, he used the opportunity to launch a broadside at cricket authorities.
"The NZC board has a lawyer in its ranks in the form of Martin Snedden. Does he see this as a just process for someone to be exposed to in an investigation?
"Geoff Allott is another board member, a successful businessman. As of tomorrow, when this test is over, I'll be unemployed. How would Geoff feel if that was him? Sir Richard Hadlee is a board member, too. How would he feel having his family name drawn through the mud?
Cairns in 2006. He was a sporting legend for New Zealand cricketers. Photo / Getty Images
"Also, David White as chief executive - is he happy for someone who gave 16 years of his life to this institution [NZC] and over 250 games for New Zealand to be treated this way? NZC has declined to comment. Why?"
I believe the blunt truth is that many at NZC felt sick to the stomach about what was happening and there was a huge amount of sympathy for Cairns' father, Lance Cairns, one of the cult heroes of the summer sport, but they had a duty of care to current players, not former ones.
With Fairfax Media on call - Cairns was a columnist for the company - he also pulled out a doozy, telling the Sunday Star-Times it was a "disgrace" that ICC investigators had approached his ex-wife, Carin van den Berg, in South Africa.
There was plenty of sympathy for his position in the public arena and there was something strangely admirable about the way Cairns was prepared to go on the front foot, to steal a cricket analogy. It was as if Cairns had transferred the character traits that briefly made him the most exciting player in world cricket to this ongoing battle with investigators.
But Cairns had a problem. Lining up against him was not an opposition bowler, but a teammate.
Sickening turn
Lou Vincent is an interesting sort of bloke.
Jumpy, impulsive, occasionally charming, Vincent didn't so much crave attention as affection. He wanted to be wanted, and that was something he struggled with his entire career.
Vincent battled with depression and in 2013 spoke candidly about the way that affected him on and off the field. Touring, for him, had taken on a dark tinge.
"I just had the anxiety of feeling worthless, that I wasn't being asked out with the rest," Vincent told me. "You're in your room, you're by yourself and nobody ever calls you to say, 'C'mon, let's go out to dinner'. You feel like an individual, not a teammate. That was my biggest issue - that feeling of worthlessness.
"It was partly immaturity, partly the environment."
For Vincent, being a Black Cap had taken its toll. He was in and out of the side, struggling to get on the same page with his coach and was spending as much time miserable as he was happy.
When he got a big-money offer to play in the nascent ICL he upped sticks, much to the chagrin of NZC who were under pressure from Indian cricket's governors, the BCCI, over the amount of players this small country seemed to be supplying the rebels.
Jumpy, impulsive and occasionally charming: Lou Vincent in 2014. Photo / Brett Phibbs
Vincent didn't much care. He needed the money and, hey, the ICL bosses made him feel wanted. Heck, when he arrived at his hotel there was even a man waiting with a business proposal and a woman for his personal use (as grotesque as that sounds). If we're to accept Vincent's side of the story, and, again, the jury obviously didn't, then his life was about to take a sickening turn.
After reporting the approach - but conveniently leaving out the part where he had sex with the woman - to Leanne McGoldrick, who was acting as agent for all the New Zealand players in the league, Vincent said he went to the room of Chandigarh Lions teammate and "hero" Cairns.
"Good, you work for me now," said Cairns, according to Vincent's testimony. Vincent had lost control of his life. He would talk of under-performing to order and even failing at that once, which provoked an alleged angry reaction from his captain. Cairns maintains it never happened.
Apart from the odd meeting, including the fateful night out in Manchester when, Vincent's ex-wife, Ellie Riley, testified, Cairns told her to relax and they would never get caught, the two cricketers' stories diverge here.
Vincent and his partner Susie Markham and Markham's daughter outside Southwark Crown Court. Photo / Chris Gorman
Vincent would find himself swept into the world of fixing with multiple underworld figures having their hooks in him. He has nobody to blame but himself. If he'd said no from the start he'd still be in the game, playing league and club cricket perhaps. Coaching kids, rolling the wicket at Takapuna, who knows? Instead he is a self-confessed cheat and a cricket pariah, facing 11 life bans from the England and Wales Cricket Board that are enforced all over the cricket world.
"I don't want sympathy, I want understanding," Vincent told the Herald. "I'm a pretty decent bloke, a good lad who simply got dragged into a thick spider's web."
The one thing he does have is his freedom. The only reason he has that freedom, we were encouraged to believe by Cairns' counsel, is he was prepared to give up a big name to anti-corruption officers even if he had to lie to do so.
Once the Herald confirmed that Metropolitan Police officers had been in New Zealand interviewing Cairns, the story started to bend and shape slightly differently - call it the pre-court posturing.
Or, put it another way, finding information wasn't that hard if you were prepared to pick up the phone and ask.
This became a journalistic treasure trove.
Over the course of a couple of weeks, colleague Andrew Alderson and I managed to claw out some of what was being said around the case, including that:
• Vincent was not paid for his fixing in the ICL, but was flown to Dubai, put up in a luxury apartment, given spending money and enjoyed a day on a superyacht;
• Vincent was trying to manipulate games while playing for Auckland Aces in the Champions League in South Africa;
• A Skype call between Vincent and Cairns' friend and lawyer Andrew Fitch-Holland was potentially a key piece of evidence and allegedly tended to suggest Fitch-Holland was encouraging Vincent to lie under oath (the lawyer says it was grossly misinterpreted and the jury at Southwark Crown Court agreed);
• A game in the ICL between the Lions and Mumbai Champs was so badly corrupted that it appears players on both sides were trying to lose;
• A member of Modi's legal team, Rajesh Vyakarnam, had been in New Zealand gathering evidence for a potential future civil case;
• Several New Zealand players had made statements to ICC investigators, including current captain McCullum.
This last revelation was huge - the wow moment of the case.
Vincent's credibility was easy to challenge, McCullum's less so. It emerged that McCullum had allegedly twice rebuffed overtures from a Player X to manipulate spread bets, once in India and once in a café in Worcester, UK.
Player X was later revealed to be Cairns. Cairns denied doing anything of the sort - and the jury agreed.
The alleged approaches occurred in 2008 and McCullum did not report it until 2011, following an anti-corruption seminar where the ACSU's John Rhodes told the cricketers that those who failed to report approaches were as liable for punishment as those who approached.
Cairns flew to the UK in May, 2014, to be questioned. On his return he read from a script to the media.
"I have never match-fixed, sought to have others match-fix, or otherwise played the game in anything other than the spirit it so richly deserves to be played in," he said in a side-room at Auckland airport.
"Over the last few years I have felt the influence of nameless, faceless people casting aspersions about me through the world of cricket and perhaps beyond ... I have said there are dark forces at play here. The just-concluded trip to England has not persuaded me to think any differently."
Cairns attacked Vincent and Riley as "despicable" liars and made a point of highlighting McCullum's three-year gap in reporting, before concluding with: "I find the manner in which this whole matter has progressed, and the limited information that has been provided to me until very recently, to be very disturbing. Knowing what I now know of these allegations against me, I find the situation truly absurd, bizarre and scary."
On September 12, 2014, www.nzherald.co.nz had one final exclusive, telling its readers that Cairns would face perjury charges. Fourteen months later we are finally provided with an answer to what had become the longest-running question: Did Cairns lie in court about cheating?
He did not.
• Very early in the investigation I was notified by an interested party that my shareholding in a cricket tech firm, CricHQ, which has several former and current cricket identities including Brendon McCullum and Stephen Fleming among its shareholders, was being looked at by Cairns' legal team. In the interest of full disclosure, about three years ago I invested $10,000 into the company following a phone call from chief executive Simon Baker, who thought it might be handy to have somebody on board to turn to for media advice. When, much later, I discovered McCullum was potentially a key witness in the Cairns' trial, I notified my bosses at the Herald.
