Day 4 Afternoon

This afternoon's session was taken up with the testimony of Felicity (Fizz) Garvie who was Tommy Sheridan' parliamentary assistant from 1999 to 2006. Alex Prentice QC began by asking her to describe her duties and then asked if she would recognise Tommy Sheridan's handwriting. She said not only that she would, she had a sample of his handwriting in her handbag. Mr Prentice remarked that " we've all had enough of handbags" (in reference to Barbara Scott's testimony) which led to laughter in the court.


Ms Garvie was asked about the 9th November 2004 Scottish Socialist Party executive meeting and she, as have all of the crown witnesses so far, alleged that Mr Sheridan admitted at that meeting that he had attended the Cupid's club in Manchester on two occassions. She was also asked if she could confirm Tommy Sheridan's then mobile telephone number. While she did not know it at first (having as she said "eradicated it" from her own phone) she did recognise it when it was read out to her.

The crown proceeded to produce a number of diaries and had Ms Garvie confirm that they belonged to Mr Sheridan. Ms Garvie was asked to read out numerous entries (20 in all) Most were to do with Mr Sheridan's location on various dates. One entry included a scored out word which the crown suggested was "Cupid." Ms Garvie agreed that it could be. Following the scored out word was an incomplete Manchester area telephone number ending with the entry "(3.5)" Mr Prentice asked Ms Garvie what "two times 3.5 is" to which she replied seven.

Finally the crown asked if she could confirm that the SSP executive meeting on the 24th November 2004 had approved the disputed minutes of the 9th November meeting. Ms Garvie stated she did not recall.

Maggie Scott QC for the defence also asked Ms Garvie about certain diary entries (of which we will doubtless hear more about as the case continues) and also asked her, in reference to the partial telephone number with "(3.5)" after it, what 3+5 was, what 3-5 was and what 3 times 5 was.

Ms Scott then moved away from the diaries and asked Ms Garvie about her bid to be an SSP candidate for the European election in 2004 and if she was upset that Tommy Sheridan did not support her. She said it was not a problem. Asked if this had led to relations between her and Mr Sheridan becoming "Frosty." She agreed that it had bit not for that reason.

She was also asked if she was a member of the "United Left" group in the SSP, and if she had supported Alan McCombes' bid to succeed Mr Sheridan as SSP convener both of which she agreed to.

There was then a brief examination by Paul McBride QC for Mrs Sheridan which concentrated on how the diaries showed what a busy man Mr Sheridan was "working for the people of Scotland" as Mr McBride put it. He then asked Ms Garvie if, given the large number of entries in the diaries, if it would be easy for anyone looking at them to become confused. Ms Garvie stated that she had worked for Mr Sheridan for many years and was not confused by them.

At that point Ms Garvie was allowed to step down and the court adjourned for the day. The case continues.

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Edited at 6.15, thanks to Billy in the comments for pointing out something I missed.