Soccer: Duberry’s ordeal ends after eight weeks

Leeds United defender Michael Duberry was today cleared of accusations that he tried to hinder police investigations into a savage attack on an Asian student.

The 25-year-old player’s ordeal at Hull Crown Court ended after nearly eight weeks in the dock.

The jury of seven men and four women also found team-mate Jonathan Woodgate and two of his friends, Paul Clifford and Neale Caveney, not guilty of the same charge of conspiring to pervert the course of justice.

But Woodgate and fellow Leeds star Lee Bowyer continue to face charges of causing grievous bodily harm to 20-year-old Sarfraz Najeib in January last year.

Jurors will continue their deliberations tomorrow after telling the trial judge they had reached no verdicts on the assault and affray charges faced by Woodgate, Bowyer, Clifford and Caveney.

As the jury gave its not guilty verdict on the sole charge faced by Duberry, the £5 million former Chelsea defender bowed his head but remained impassive.

While his counsel Clare Montgomery QC successfully applied for costs, the footballer rubbed his face vigorously with his hands as if exhausted.

As the jury was sent home for the night, Duberry, a father of two young girls, looked across at them and smiled.

As the remaining defendants left the dock, Woodgate paused and embraced Duberry, his best friend.

Two weeks earlier Duberry had admitted in court telling lies to police to protect Woodgate.

But he also told the jury that Woodgate had admitted to him that he had been fighting with some Asians.

He left the court via a back entrance without speaking to reporters and cameramen but raised a hand over his head in a thumbs-up salute.

His solicitor John Perry said outside: ‘‘Today ends a year for Michael Duberry. We cannot say any more but Michael would like to thank his advocates Clare Montgomery and Wayne Jordache.

‘‘You will forgive us if we do not say any more but, given the nature of this case, I will have a lot to say at the end of the trial.’’

The prosecution had alleged that following the savage attack on Mr Najeib, Duberry had driven three of the accused away from the scene and to his home on the outskirts of Leeds.

Mr Najeib had suffered serious injuries in the attack in Leeds city centre, including a broken leg, fractured nose and a bite mark to his right cheek.

It was alleged there was a conspiracy to hide or destroy potentially incriminating evidence when Duberry provided Clifford and another man with a change of clothing.

But Duberry told the jury that the reason he supplied two tracksuits to the pair was because another man, James Hewison, was so drunk that he had vomited over the others while in the back of his black Range Rover.

The trial judge Mr Justice Poole had told jurors that if they were convinced Mr Hewison had been sick in Duberry’s car, they must acquit the defendants facing the conspiracy charge.

In court Duberry admitted lying to police in a witness statement and a later police interview.

He told them that Woodgate and his friends had arrived at his home in a taxi in an attempt to protect his colleague and ‘‘because I did not want to get involved’’.

Throughout his police statements he mentioned nothing of the attack on Mr Najeib.

But in a dramatic change of evidence in the witness box, Duberry claimed that when he met Woodgate minutes after the assault, the player told him he had been in a fight with some Asians.

Duberry told the jury that Woodgate also admitted that his friend Clifford had ‘‘bitten one of the lads’’.

He said by giving evidence against his friend Woodgate he was prepared to sacrifice his popularity at Leeds United to ‘‘save himself’’ from the conspiracy charge.

‘‘I think that I might come out of this looking bad because you could say I have sold out my mate to save myself,’’ he told the jury.

‘‘I might not be liked at Leeds United but in saving myself, that’s what I had to do.’’

He also told how he had warned Woodgate of the evidence he was going to live.

He had taken him into a side room at Hull Crown Court and told him: ‘‘Woody, I’m going to tell it like it is.’’

He said that Woodgate was ‘‘shocked’’, adding: ‘‘He asked me not to do it.’’

Miss Montgomery told the jury in her closing speech that the decision had ‘‘plainly cost him dear’’ whether or not he was convicted.

‘‘People will call out ‘grass’ to him in the street.

‘‘Football fans will abuse him for the damage his evidence has done to one of their idols,’’ she said.

‘‘He will have to face the claims he has betrayed his friend and team-mate.

‘‘He will have to live with the allegations of selfishness and the taunts of ‘grass’.

‘‘You may think he will find that hard to bear, but don’t make him bear the weight of a conviction.’’

Woodgate, Caveney and Clifford, all 21 and from Middlesbrough, and Bowyer, 24, of Leeds, deny all the charges.