In a perjury charge arising from a 2012 UK libel trial over alleged match-fixing, former New Zealand all-rounder Chris Cairns has pleaded that he is not guilty of it.
The former New Zealand great appeared on Friday at the Old Bailey, also known as the Central Criminal Court of England and Wale, in London before Justice Nigel Sweeney for a plea and case management hearing ahead of a trial scheduled for October this year.
Cairns, who captained New Zealand seven times, appeared in the court alongside his barrister from the 2012 defamation trial, Andrew Fitch-Holland, who also pleaded not guilty to a count of perverting the course of justice, Stuff.co.nz reported.
Cairns and Fitch-Holland stood before the court behind a glass screen and both said that they were not guilty when charges were read out.
After suing Indian Premier League founder Lalit Modi over a tweet that accused the former New Zealand all-rounder of match fixing, Cairns won 90,000 dollars in damages in 2012.
However, police alleges that Cairns made a statement during that libel trial that he knew to be false when he declared he had never, ever cheated at cricket.
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Meanwhile, Fitch-Holland is accused of asking disgraced New Zealand cricketer Lou Vincent to provide a false witness statement in connection with the defamation action between Cairns and Modi.
A four-week trial is scheduled to begin on October 5, 2015 after it was delayed because key witnesses are only available during down time in the international cricket calendar, the report added.