Tottenham manager Harry Redknapp has been cleared of taking bungs in an offshore tax dodge.
Redknapp's hopes of leading the England team received a major boost as he walked free from court. Jurors accepted Redknapp's angry denials that he avoided tax on any payments over £189,000 found in a Monaco account.
His acquittal alongside co-defendant Milan Mandaric blows the final whistle on a five-year £8 million police investigation which failed to yield a single conviction. Mandaric and former Portsmouth chief executive Peter Storrie were also cleared of £600,000 tax dodge claims at a previous trial, it can be reported for the first time.
Redknapp and Mandaric hugged as the jury cleared them of all counts. Redknapp was at times moved to the verge of tears as the Crown alleged that he told a pack of lies in an attempt to get off the hook.
But jurors accepted Redknapp and Mandaric's evidence that the Monaco account in the name of Redknapp's dog, Rosie, was nothing to do with footballing matters. The two-week trial at London's Southwark Crown Court threatened to derail Redknapp's progress at the pinnacle of his 30-year managerial career.
Having led Spurs through their most successful period in the Premier League era, the Londoner was tipped as the outstanding favourite to replace Fabio Capello as England manager this summer. With his name cleared in the courts, nothing would now appear to stand in the way for the Football Association to hire him.
The verdicts mark a disastrous end of an exhaustive inquiry into football corruption by tax authorities and City of London Police. Police began pursuing Redknapp in 2006 after he admitted having the Monaco account as he was questioned by the Quest inquiry into Premier League bungs.
The transactions took place as the pair squabbled over a transfer bonus Redknapp was due for the £3 million profit the club made on the sale of England striker Peter Crouch. But the jury accepted Redknapp's claim that he knew he was "morally but not legally" entitled to the cash.
A recorded telephone conversation between News of the World reporter Rob Beasley and the pair in 2009 was a pivotal element in the Crown's case. Redknapp telling Mr Beasley it was money for transfer bonuses was "the most compelling and important evidence", prosecutor John Black QC said.
But defence barrister John Kelsey-Fry QC said the Sunday tabloid's evidence was "primarily despicable". "I do not shrink from suggesting to you it is repugnant to all our basic instincts of fairness in the criminal justice process," he said.
