Leeds United footballers Michael Duberry and Jonathan Woodgate were yesterday cleared of charges of conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in the trial relating to the assault of an Asian student last year.
Duberry (25), who was facing a single conspiracy charge, stood with his head bowed as the jury of seven men and four women at Hull Crown Court found him not guilty and awarded costs.
Woodgate and his friends, Paul Clifford (21) and Neale Caveney (21), were also cleared of conspiracy, but along with the Leeds United midfielder, Lee Bowyer, they await verdicts on charges of affray and grievous bodily harm with intent against the student, Mr Sarfraz Najeib (21), outside a Leeds night-club last January. The jury will resume its deliberations on those charges today.
After the verdicts, Duberry's team-mate, Woodgate, embraced him, and the footballer left the court without talking to reporters. But Duberry's solicitor, Mr John Perry, said the verdict "ends a year for Michael Duberry . . . You will forgive us if we do not say anything more today given the nature of the trial. I will have a lot to say at the end of the trial".
Duberry and the other defendants had denied perverting the course of justice by taking part in a cover-up to hide potentially incriminating evidence. Du berry, the prosecution claimed, had driven Woodgate, Clifford and Caveney to his home near Leeds after the attack on Mr Najeib outside the Majestyk night-club on January 12th and provided Clifford and another man with a change of clothes.
However, Duberry told the court that one of Woodgate's friends, James Hewison, had been drunk and had vomited over the clothes of the other people in his Range Rover as he drove them to his home.
During his evidence in the court, Duberry said the Leeds United lawyer and club director, Mr Peter McCormick, had backed a false story in which he lied in a police statement.
Duberry admitted that he had told police the group had taken a taxi to his home, when in fact he had driven them in his car. He lied, he said, so that his statement would tally with that of his friend, Woodgate.
"It was a lie," he told Hull Crown Court on March 21st. "I did not want to say anything that would get Woody into any more trouble. I did not want to get him in trouble, so I went along with his story."
When he wanted to change his statement, Mr McCormick advised him to "stick with his story", Duberry said. In February last year Duberry again approached Mr McCormick about wishing to change his statement, but for a second time he was advised against doing so.
"I told him I wanted to change what I wanted to say and he advised me not to. He used the word `perjury' and said `Say what is in your statement and stick with it'."
In his summing up of the evidence earlier this week, Mr Justice Poole told the jury there was absolutely no evidence of a racial motive in the attack on Mr Najeib. The prosecution case suggested not racism, but "spiteful group retaliation" and he also urged the jury to disregard the celebrity status of some of the defendants.
He said: "Some are young men in the public eye, well-known footballers, others are not. It doesn't matter. You treat them all in exactly the same way. Ignore their status, past, present or future."