All over: Redknapp (left) leaves Southwark Crown Court after being cleared of all charges

With each passing day it felt more and more like a ridiculous trial. When the four verdicts of ‘not guilty’ were returned, the two men who were likened this week to Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon’s Odd Couple hugged in the witness box.

In the public gallery Redknapp’s son, Jamie, reported the news back home on his mobile phone. He had been in court with his father every one of the 13 days, had been reduced to an emotional wreck during the five-and-a-half hours his father spent on the stand, but the father and son were soon embracing once Judge Anthony Leonard had told the two defendants they could go.

For Redknapp this was not just the end of a gruelling, gut-wrenching trial. It was the end of a ‘nightmare’; a four-and-a-half-year investigation into his financial affairs — eight if you include the civil tax inquiry into a £300,000  payment he received from West Ham when Rio Ferdinand moved to Leeds United.

His house was raided by police one morning when he was returning from a scouting trip, terrifying his wife Sandra. The raid was led by the same policeman he turned on in court last week and whom Mandaric made a point of addressing politely at the end of the trial.

As those closest to Redknapp said, the fear of a guilty  verdict, of ending with a term in jail, was never far from his mind.

« Previous123456Next »