Chris Cairns' trial has been compared to the Salem Witch Trials by the lawyer representing his co-accused, Andrew Fitch-Holland.
Fitch-Holland was attacked by the Crown for what it called "rehearsed, word-perfect evidence". His lawyer labelled the accusation ‘ridiculous’ and akin to testing for witchcraft in the 17th century.
Chris Cairns is a big name and his trial is a big deal, so it's no big surprise he gets more attention than his co-accused, friend and unofficial lawyer Fitch-Holland.
But the two men have shared the dock for nearly two months. In summing up his case, Fitch-Holland's lawyer had to remind the jury, "There is a second man for whom this trial is every bit as important, who's also put his personal and professional life on hold, though he's become a bit part, a sideshow."
Fitch-Holland has been described during the trial as a cricket groupie, star-struck and flattered by Cairns' friendship.
But his lawyer Jonathan Laidlaw says their friendship went "far beyond hero worship" and it "endures and persists to this day".
He says of the Crown's case, "If they can get you to think he was completely enamoured, bewitched, they might also get you seriously considering it might be possible to get a barrister like Fitch-Holland to break all the rules, to completely abandon all he stands for to help his friend."
Like Cairns, Fitch-Holland is charged with perverting the course of justice - trying to get Lou Vincent to make a false legal statement ahead of Cairns lawsuit against Lalit Modi.
The key evidence is a Skype call between Fitch-Holland and Vincent, a man described by the defence as "a man who wouldn't recognise the truth if it struck him square in the forehead", and a "man who has committed umpteen criminal offences all over the world for which he has escaped with… a life ban in cricket imposed at a time when he'd finished playing the game. If it weren't so serious it would be laughable".
Fitch-Holland's chief defence is ignorance - how could he have tried to convince Vincent to lie about Cairns' match-fixing when he didn't believe - then or now - that Cairns ever fixed matches?
Jonathan Laidlaw spent a lot of his speech attacking the prosecution. It reached fever pitch when he compared it to the witch trials.
He said the Crown criticised Fitch-Holland for giving evidence that was too consistent and too perfect, because honest witnesses make mistakes.
"Does that remind you of the witch trials?" he asked the jury.
If a woman drowned when she was held under water she was innocent - if she survived she was obviously a witch and was burnt alive.
Laidlaw – who, incidentally, got former News of The World editor Rebekah Brooks off phone hacking charges - ended his speech saying, “you're damned if you do and damned if you don't”.
But whether it damns or it doesn't is now up to the jury.
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