FORMER New Zealand cricketer Chris Cairns will face serious criminal charges delivered by the most powerful attack he has faced, the British legal system, when the perjury case against him opens in London today.Cairns, 45, is accused of lying under oath, in his successful 2012 libel action against Indian businessman Lalit Modi.
Central to allegations he will face in Southwark Crown Court is his statement that he “never, ever cheated at cricket” and nor would he “contemplate doing such a thing”.
Perjury is a rare charge in New Zealand. In Britain it carries a maximum sentence of seven years’ jail.
In 2001, millionaire British novelist Jeffrey Archer was jailed for four years in 2001 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.
Perjury 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”.
To prove that, there must be corroboration with more than one person telling the same story or documents which back witness statements.
While Cairns triumphed over Modi the last time he went to court in London, his opponent this time is tougher and carries more weapons.
Modi didn’t have legal authority to get documentary evidence to support his case, as the Metropolitan Police does
Police would have written evidence to back witness statements, such as money transactions and travel documents helping establish where those involved were at certain times and when key exchanges took place, legal sources said.
Cairns took on Modi for accusing him in a tweet of corruption when playing for Chandigarh in the Indian Cricket League (ICL), set up as a rival to Modi’s Indian Premier League (IPL).