Anyone with a passing passion within the assassination of John F. Kennedy is aware of in regards to the Zapruder movie, the silent 8mm collection shot via Abraham Zapruder because the president’s automobile drove via Dallas on a fateful day in November 1963. For virtually 60 years it’s been picked over via professionals and conspiracy theorists alike in quest of who truly killed JFK.
Over 4 days in a stuffy room on Fleet Street in March, virtually as a lot forensic scrutiny was once implemented to every other grainy video. As Michael Vaughan sat gazing the 2 mins and 29 seconds of Sky Sports pictures, spliced and diced, disputed and fought over, he knew that his popularity and profession had been at the line.
At the guts of the case had been 14 phrases that the previous England captain was once speculated to have stated to Yorkshire’s Asian gamers prior to their Twenty20 fit in opposition to Nottinghamshire in 2009: “There’s too many of you lot; we have to have a word about that. The problem for the Cricket Discipline Commission, who heard the case, was there was no equivalent to frame 313, which captured the fatal shot to Kennedy’s head.
However Vaughan’s high-powered legal team still decided to make it a cornerstone of his defense, which ended on Friday with the case against him not being proved. It turned out to be a masterstroke – even though the Sky footage of Yorkshire players in a huddle cut away during the crucial 19 seconds where Azeem Rafiq had alleged that Vaughan had uttered racist and discriminatory words.
Why was it so effective? It helped Vaughan’s case that one of the key witnesses, Adil Rashid, gave every impression of preferring to have faced the great West Indies bowling attacks of the 70s and 80s rather than Vaughan’s counsel, Christopher Stoner KC.
Stoner started by taking Rashid back to the day in 2009, when the incident is said to have taken place.
“Was it a day or night game?” “I can’t recall that,” said Rashid.
“What was the result?” “I can’t remember.”
“Do you remember how many wickets you took?” “Zero.”
“Do you remember what the weather was like that day?” “No.”
The implication was clear. If Rashid, one of Rafiq’s key witnesses, could not remember the basics of the match, could he really be trusted to remember what had been said?
Stoner then showed Rashid footage of patting his teammate Tim Bresnan before the alleged incident was due to have occurred. “There are no signs of anything untoward,” he pointed out.
Later the panel was also shown frame-by-frame analysis showing how Vaughan had shaken the hand of Rashid 15 seconds into the footage, Rana Naveed-ul-Hasan after 17 seconds, and Ajmal Shahzad at 19 seconds. Furthermore, Stoner noted that Vaughan had also been aware of a cameraman videotaping the team moments before his alleged comments.
With this, Stoner was making two more related points. First, Vaughan – as he had stated in his 2009 autobiography – was proud to have Asian players playing for Yorkshire. And second, that even if he wasn’t, would he really have uttered a racist comment knowing the cameras were there?
The video evidence was also used by Vaughan’s legal team to skewer the ECB’s evidence gathering abilities. The ECB’s director of legal and integrity, Meena Botros, bore the brunt of it as Stoner questioned why they had not interviewed the players, officials or cameraman on the day in question.
“You spoke to Mr Rafiq and you spoke to Mr Shahzad but you didn’t speak to any of the players?” Stoner requested Botros at one level.
“I think that is correct,” got here the answer.
“You didn’t speak to any of the umpires?” “No.”
“The cameraman?” “No.”
“Or ask to speak to Mr. Vaughan?” “We wrote to him.”
“So you weren’t really interested in looking into the matter, apart from finding corroborating evidence, were you Mr Botros?” “That’s not correct,” got here the answer.
It was once one thing Stoner returned to in his final submission, the place he famous that a number of gamers had stated that they had now not heard Vaughan say such phrases prior to attacking the ECB’s investigation as woefully insufficient. “Due process matters and it is the cornerstone of law,” he stated. “But in our submission it was sent on holiday by the ECB. It raises a real question of fairness, which Mr Vaughan has not been afforded.”
That struck a chord with the panel, who said in their concluding remarks that the ECB case against Vaughan had not been “sufficiently accurate and reliable”.
But what about the two main protagonists? In his testimony, Rafiq was eloquent and often powerful as he outlined his case and talked of the “mental scars” that he had endured. He did say, however, to having amended the wording of Vaughan’s alleged comments, having originally claimed his teammate said: “There’s too many of you lot, we need to do something about it.”
That was something picked up on by the CDC panel in their decision, which noted the “significant inconsistencies in the evidence of both primary witnesses, Azeem Rafiq and Adil Rashid, in this regard”.
Vaughan was also measured when he gave his evidence, although there were signs of cockiness when questioned about his career by the ECB’s impressive counsel Jane Mulcahy KC. “It’s like a question of sport, this,” he stated.
But there were uncomfortable moments for him too, with Mulcahy saying that three tweets sent in 2010 and 2017, including one that said “Not many English other folks reside in London. I wish to be informed a brand new language,” were indicative of a general pattern. “If an individual tends to make racist feedback, they generally tend to make racist feedback,” she said.
However, the panel said it gave some weight to the fact it had been an isolated allegation against Vaughan, along with his claim that he would never “put a group of my own teammates into a position where they wouldn’t be able to perform to their maximum, and that’s certainly not what I’m about.”
Ultimately, the panel made up our minds that, at the stability of possibilities, it “was more likely than not” that Vaughan had now not made the ones feedback.
However, in its final remarks it additionally stated that: “These findings don’t in any respect undermine the broader assertions made via Rafiq, lots of which after all had been showed via the admissions of each Yorkshire and likely folks, in addition to via different findings of this panel. For the ones folks who sat via each minute of testimony and proof, that judgment felt about proper.