Disgraced Pakistan cricketers

Disgraced Pakistan cricketers

Salman Butt, Mohammad Amir, Mohammad Asif and Mazhar Majeed all imprisoned for spot-fixing

Disgraced Pakistan cricketers Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir were jailed on Thursday for a fixing conspiracy that the trial judge said undermined the integrity and image of cricket and meant no fan could ever trust what they saw on the field again.

The three players, imprisoned alongside their agent Mazhar Majeed for terms of between two years eight months and six months after fixing elements of the Lord’s and Oval Test matches last summer, become the first sportsmen to be jailed for on-field corruption in the UK for almost 50 years.

The conspiracy was exposed following a sting by undercover reporters working for the News of the World, who filmed Majeed accepting £150,000.

Read how the morning unfolded here ...

Sentencing the men to jail terms he hoped would act as a deterrent to others, trial judge Mr Justice Cooke made it clear that the evidence heard in court pointed to the players and Majeed being involved in more extensive corruption than that detailed during the four-week trial, and also suggested the involvement of other players.

Butt was jailed for two years six months, Asif for one year and Amir, who the judge ruled was less culpable than the others, will be detained for six months in a young offenders’ institution. Majeed, described as the architect of the fixing operation, was jailed for two years eight months.