London: Former Black Caps cricket captain Chris Cairns has been found not guilty of perjury by a London jury.
Cairns was also found not guilty on the charge of perverting the course of justice.
His co-accused, Andrew Fitch-Holland, was found not guilty of perverting the course of justice.
In a trial which began on October 5, Cairns was accused of lying under oath in his 2012 libel trial win against wealthy Indian businessman Lalit Modi, an action he initiated.
He and former legal adviser Andrew Fitch-Holland were both charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice, for trying to get Lou Vincent to provide a false statement to the Modi hearing.
Modi had in 2010 tweeted Cairns had been excluded from the Indian Premier League (IPL) auction due to his "past record of match fixing".
Cairns, who had no record of match-fixing, took legal action. Central to allegations Cairns faced in Southwark Crown Court was his statement in that case he "never, ever cheated at cricket" and nor would he "contemplate doing such a thing".
Cairns won his legal battle with Modi in March 2012, and was awarded costs and damages.
But when Vincent confessed to match-fixing in August 2013, he alleged Cairns was a cricket cheat to the International Cricket Council (ICC) and Metropolitan Police. So did New Zealand captain Brendon McCullum, in 2011.
Perjury is a rare charge in New Zealand. In Britain it carries a maximum sentence of seven years' jail. It is difficult to prove, with a jury having to be convinced beyond reasonable doubt the defendant deliberately made a "material" statement "knowing it was false, or not believing it to be true".
In 2001, millionaire British novelist Jeffrey Archer was jailed for four years after being found guilty of perjury and perverting the course of justice in a 1987 libel case against the Daily Star newspaper.
Where a defendant is found to have committed perjury for material gain, that worsens the crime. Archer had won damages against the newspaper.
Vincent was one of three key crown witnesses in a trial that started on October 5. The other two were McCullum and Ellie Riley - Vincent's ex-wife.
Now-banned match fixer Vincent told the court Cairns introduced him to the dark art, instructing him to fix games for the Chandigarh Lions in the 2008 Indian Cricket League (ICL).
His role as an opener was to score 10 to 15 runs off 20 balls, then get out.
McCullum gave evidence that Cairns in 2008 twice tried to line him up as a fixer, once in a hotel in India, where he was in the IPL, and again in a cafe in England.
Cairns had reassured Riley in 2008 the fixers would never get caught, she said in evidence. Six other witnesses told the jury either Vincent or McCullum had talked to them about Cairns, well before they had given their statements to the authorities.
Defence lawyer Orlando Pownall, QC, called Vincent as a self-confessed liar and cheat out to save his own skin by setting up Cairns, and Justice Sweeney had warned the jury to treat his evidence with caution, given his tendency to lie.
Vincent should have been jailed for corruption, fraud, money laundering and bribery in England, Pownall said. Cairns had never paid him, but Indian bookie Varun Gandhi had.
While McCullum did meet Cairns twice in 2008, he had turned those meetings into approaches to cheat, when they never were, the defence said.
Riley had had plenty to drink and was in an argument in the toilets on the night she said she talked to Cairns, a conversation the cricketer and his wife said had never happened.
McCullum, Daniel Vettori, former Australian skipper Ricky Ponting, and former Black Caps Shane Bond, Kyle Mills, Andre Adams, Chris Harris and Lou Vincent were among those to give evidence.
Trial evidence at times caused sensation, with prostitutes given as enticements to cheat, blackmail allegations, lies, drinking, threats of violence, broken marriages, unpaid debts, and surreptitiously recorded Skype conversations.
Stuff.co.nz
