Cairns denies two counts of perjury and perverting the course of justice
Image courtesy of: Zimbio
The jury at the Chris Cairns perjury trial heard how the former New Zealand all-rounder was incensed when police first accused of match-fixing.
Cairns, who denies two counts of perjury and perverting the course of justice, was made to listen to tapes of his statement to the police in April and May 2014, during which he responded to the allegations of match-fixing made against him by Lou Vincent, Brendon McCullum and Vincent’s ex-wife Eleanor Riley.
In his statement to the police, Cairns was heard saying how the allegations had made it hard for him to find work and left him in financial difficulties.
He became very infuriated by Riley’s recollection during a night out in Manchester in 2008, during which Cairns had allegedly told her not to worry about her then-husband being involved in match-fixing as “everyone in India” was doing it.
“Seriously? These are the accusations in regard to this?” Cairns told police in his statement. “This is why I can’t get money, this is why I can’t make a living? This is it?
“I don’t want to seem like a whack job. I’ve been wracking my brains for months, I’ve been f**ked over.”
Meanwhile, Cairns also admitted that Vincent was in a bad state when he played with him for the Chandigarh Lions in the Indian Cricket League (ICL) in 2008.
Vincent admitted that he had been taking cannabis and medication to combat his depression after he was dropped from the New Zealand team in 2007.
Cairns claimed that he tried to help Vincent out, but conceded that he was “always up and down, and that was without medication”.
During his libel trial against former Indian Premier League (IPL) chairman Lalit Modi in 2012, Cairns and fellow defendant Andrew Fitch-Holland, who has been charged with perverting the course of justice, allegedly told Vincent to provide a false witness statement to support Cairns.
Cairns told police that Vincent had agreed to do it, but wanted to be paid for doing so.
“He was looking for remuneration for providing something he felt would be helpful to me,” Cairns said. “He never said money, and I never said money, but without a shadow of a doubt we were talking about money.”
Cairns allegedly told Vincent about the creating a false witness statement during a Skype call in March 2011, which Vincent recorded.
The call was played back to the court earlier in the trial, but Fitch-Holland revealed he didn’t know that Vincent had “surreptitiously” recorded the call or that he was involved in match-fixing.
Fitch-Holland also believes that the Skype call could not be used as evidence as he felt that Vincent had been trying to coax a false statement out of Cairns.
“Lou Vincent is up to his neck in match-fixing and he’s trying to throw Chris Cairns under the bus … and I’m collateral damage,” Fitch-Holland said. “He is a self-confessed corrupt man and a liar.”
It was also heard that Cairns denied meeting McCullum in a hotel room in Kolkata in 2008 to talk about match-fixing and spread betting.
“I may have bumped in to him, there were a lot of the boys [New Zealand cricketers] in and out and around,” Cairns said.
When asked if he had told McCullum “not to miss out” on the opportunity to make a lot of money via match-fixing, Cairns said: “No. Brendon is misconstruing a discussion we might have been having. Baz is an inquisitive guy.”
The trial continues.