THE JURY in a soccer bribes trial ended its first day of deliberations yesterday without reaching a verdict, and asked to see key video evidence again.
The jury asked to review a film clip which allegedly showed the former Liverpool goalkeeper, Mr Bruce Grobbelaar (39), accepting money to throw a top game.
After nearly five hours of deliberation, the jury passed a note to the judge asking to see a recording of one of the tapes shown earlier during the trial.
Because of a video mechanical breakdown yesterday, they will have to wait until today to see the film, which the prosecution says shows a packet of £2,000 being offered to Mr Grobbelaar as an inducement to rig top level games.
"Please retire and try to reach a verdict you all agree on. It's obviously preferable if you can do that," Judge Simon Tuckey told the jury of eight men and three women. One juror was discharged early in the case.
The jurors have spent seven weeks listening to the case against Mr Grobbelaar and the former Wimbledon goalkeeper, Mr Hans Segers (35), both charged with accepting money to throw matches on behalf of an Asian betting syndicate. Former Wimbledon and Aston Villa striker, Mr John Fashanu (34), and a Malaysian businessman, Mr Heng Suan Lim (31), are accused of handing over the money to the players.
Mr Grobbelaar also faces a charge of accepting £2,000 as an inducement to throw a match. All four men deny the charges, although Mr Lim admits to paying the two goalkeepers for predicting the results of English and Dutch soccer matches.
Judge Tuckey ended three days of summing up by briefly running through the final statements by the defence and prosecution.
At the start of his summing up last Thursday, he told the jury not to be overwhelmed by the fame of the stars they had heard giving evidence and the publicity surrounding the case.
Much of the prosecution evidence came from Mr Chris Vincent, a former business partner of Mr Grobbelaar who secretly taped the goalkeeper as he appeared to admit to having thrown games.
Mr Grobbelaar said he had faked the admission to trick Mr Vincent, who also told the court he had accompanied the player to London to receive £40,000 in late November 1993 for throwing an away game against Newcastle.
All four defence lawyers portrayed Mr Vincent as a treacherous liar who had invented the story to make money from the case. On Thursday, Judge Tuckey said the jury should consider Mr Vincent's evidence with caution because he had a motive for lying.
Mr Vincent told the court he wanted to destroy Mr Grobbelaar, whom he blamed for the July 1994 collapse of a safari park venture the two men were trying to set up in Zimbabwe.
The prosecution said Mr Lim could not explain why he had received over £500,000 from the Far East between 1991 and 1994.
The businessman said it was payment from a rich benefactor for the forecasts he had made.
Mr Fashanu received more than £200,000 from the same sources between 1991 and 1995 but declined to testify in court. His lawyer said the money was for investment in business ventures.
Mr Segers admitted he had lied to police about £104,000 he paid into a Swiss bank account from 1993 to 1994.
The goalkeeper, fearful of being banned from the game for forecasting, said the money came from the proceeds of car thefts he had carried out when a teenager.
He told the court the story had been "absolute rubbish".
A small crowd gathered in drizzling rain to watch the defendants leave court at the end of the day.