UK prosecutors have shown the ICC how to do the job

The journey between the shock headlines in the News of the World newspaper in August last year to the moment when the foreman of the jury at Southwark Crown Court pronounced the word “GUILTY” for the first time on Tuesday has been a long and circuitous one. Detectives in the UK, together with the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and its barrister Aftab Jafferjee QC, had to present a case that was on the one hand very thorough, but, crucially, as free of complexity as possible. Members of a jury in England and Wales are called up randomly, the only real qualification being that they must be registered voters aged between 18 and 70. They don’t have to have any academic qualifications. In certain circumstances, believe it or not, they can even be ex-criminals themselves. [caption id=“attachment_121109” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“A long trial was followed by some lengthy deliberations – but in the end the verdicts were, surely, the only ones that made sense following some pretty overwhelming evidence that had been piled up against Asif and Salman Butt (above). Oli Scarff/Getty Images”]  [/caption] Cases that involve fraud tend to be inherently more complicated than those involving physical assault or robbery. In the spot-fixing trial, prosecutors also had to explain sports betting and the rules of a particular sport. Despite the healthy attendances at international matches, cricket in the UK is not followed on anything like the scale as it is in India and Pakistan. And although it is both legal and reasonably popular, betting is also a niche concern. It remains largely a mystery to most people, even those who place occasional bets in the Grand National horse race. But even to get as far as a jury deliberating on a verdict would require something of a breakthrough for the police and the CPS. That’s because of the painful and relatively recent experience of the Kieren Fallon case. Allow me to explain. Four years earlier, in another high-profile case also involving alleged corruption in sport, there was a very different ending to the tale when the judge, Justice Forbes, directed the jury to acquit because there was no case for them to answer. That trial, involving horse-racing, took two months and cost £10 million. At the end of it six-time champion jockey Kieren Fallon, the most prominent defendant, walked free and liberally voiced his outrage at the authorities. This was a highly specialised case, in which Fallon, two other jockeys, and various gamblers and businessmen, had been accused of plotting to stop 27 fancied horses winning their races, and thus defrauding customers of online betting service Betfair. But in a shambolic case, the prosecution relied on the evidence of an Australian racing steward, who admitted he knew nothing about the rules and customs of British racing. Fallon’s lawyer was even able to produce an example of his client WINNING a race when a betting syndicate was expecting him to lose, confronting him at 1 am at his former family home and “behaving like a criminal gang”. Having received something of a bloody nose on that occasion, the CPS would have been desperate to get things right this time. In their favour were two things – convincing evidence provided by a seasoned investigative reporter and a comparative lack of complexity compared to the horse-racing trial. What was not in their favour was the ICC’s decision to act before the criminal process had followed its course, when it banned the players in February. (This issue received little publicity at the time. But the ICC had an option to issue a suspended ban until the end of the trial – instead, it laid its cards on the tables and must have come close to jeopardising a free hearing for the three Pakistan players.) In any event, the CPS pressed on with its case, and eventually a court date was announced. A compelling jigsaw of evidence was built: large quantities of cash in various denominations, video footage of the three no-balls, and a lovely little statistic revealing there was a “one in a 1.5 million chance” of three no-balls occurring at specific times in a Test match – unless, of course, they had been bowled on purpose. The video footage provided by the News of the World featuring the agent was clearly a big draw – something tangible for the jury to consider, and a refreshing change from a diet of transcripts and verbal evidence. When Butt took the stand, he was cross-examined at length for two days – the prosecution maximising its opportunity to rubbish his package of lies. Then Asif came to the stand. While trying to save his own skin, he seemed less concerned about the fate that might await his former captain. A long trial was followed by some lengthy deliberations – but in the end the verdicts were, surely, the only ones that made sense following some pretty overwhelming evidence that had been piled up against Asif and Butt. When Detective Chief Superintendent Matt Horne spoke to reporters afterwards he briefly acknowledged the crucial role played by the News of the World. Ironically, the newspaper in question is now defunct, closed down by media mogul Rupert Murdoch in the wake of a massive phone-hacking scandal. But this, from beyond the grave, was a final hurrah from the tabloid. The police and the CPS had done their jobs too. Frankly, they’ve shown the ICC how to do the job – but I wouldn’t bet on the ICC suddenly achieving such notable scalps of its own. Oliver Brett has worked with the BBC.