Majority verdict likely in Cairns trial

The five men and seven women on the jury had a two-day break to attend appointments postponed because of the marathon eight-week trial.

The perjury trial of the former New Zealand cricketer Chris Cairns will go into a ninth week as the jury continues its deliberations at Southwark crown court.

At 4.30pm London time the jury returned to the court room and Justice Edwin Sweeney dismissed them for the weekend.

Lawyers, police, the media and the co-defendants all leapt to their feet expecting a verdict but it was the jury asking it the court would accept a majority verdict rather than a unanimous one.

Cairns was charged with perjury in relation to a 2012 libel case in which he stated that he “never, ever cheated at cricket”.

Cairns’s friend and “legal adviser”, Andrew Fitch-Holland, 50, of Burton Road, Manchester, is also accused of perverting the course of justice. McCullum testified that Cairns approached him with a “business proposition” that involved match-fixing in April 2008. Cairns has always denied any involvement in match-fixing.

The jury in Chris Cairns’s London trial has finished the week with no verdict.

Both Cairns and Fitch-Holland have pleaded not guilty to the charges.

Cairns won $174,000 in damages after Modi, on Twitter, accused Cairns of match-fixing during the 2008 ICL season.

The former national captain also faces a charge of perverting the course of justice over allegations that he persuaded fellow cricketer Lou Vincent to provide a false witness statement for him during a Skype conversation. The foreman said they hadn’t. “It is by that route you can return true verdicts according to the evidence”.