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| Steven Nimmo (left) with Colin Fox |
Mr Nimmo was then asked if he had given evidence in the 2006 libel trial, which he said he had not and also told the court he had met Mr Sheridan at the Waverley station Burger King just before the libel case to explain he would "tell the truth" if called. When asked about Mr Sheridan's response the witness replied "not much" and that they had then went "their separate ways."
Finally Mr Prentice showed Mr Nimmo the other alleged minute of the "9/11" meeting (the "Mystery minute" as it was called by Maggie Scott QC and asked if his initials appeared on it. The witness said they did not, even though he was at the meeting. With that the Crown had no further questions and Mr Sheridan left the dock to begin his cross-examination.
Mr Sheridan began by asking Mr Nimmo a succession of questions about various people asking if they were "good honest socialists." He then moved back to the "mystery minute" and had Mr Nimmo read out each paragraph asking after each one if it was accurate. Mr Nimmo agreed it was, apart from not having any reference to the alleged admissions about the Cupids club. He then put it to the witness that the "9/11" meeting was a "Kangaroo court" and that the witness had already made up his mind before the meeting happened. The witness stated he had not. The court then rose for lunch with Mr Nimmo's cross examination to be continued.
Mr Sheridan opened after lunch by asking the witness about a statement supposedly made at the "9/11" meeting "we are being asked to participate in a cover up, in Militant no cover up" and asking if the witness recalled who said that? Mr Nimmo said he did not. He then asked the witness who the Militant were, to which Mr Nimmo replied they were "an organisation within the Labour Party" and a "Marxist organisation that was expelled from the Labour party. Mr Sheridan then asked the witness if he was aware that he himself had been a member of Militant, to which Mr Nimmo replied yes. Mr Sheridan then put it to the witness that Militant had been a "semi-clandestine organisation" and asked who else at the 9/11 meeting was a member. The witness listed 6 people who he said were.
Mr Sheridan then presented to the court the affidavit given to the Sunday Herald newspaper, supposedly by Alan McCombes. He highlighted one particular passage which read "Had he [Tommy Sheridan] not resigned we would have put certain information into the public domain which would have forced him to resign" He then finished by asking the witness if he would be surprised that all of the Executive committee members who had testified he had made admissions at the meeting "were all either full time staff, members of the United Left or both" Finally he put it to Mr Nimmo that he was "simply not telling the truth" Mr Nimmo insisted "I am telling the truth and at that Mr Sheridan ended his cross-examination.
The Advocate Depute then re-examined the witness and returned to the minute presented by Mr Sheridan (the mystery minute) and took the witness through the document and noted that it listed 18 people as attending. He then had the witness agree that as Barbara Scott could not vote and Tommy Sheridan had left the meeting their were only 16 people there that could have voted, while the minute lists the results of one ballot as 11 to 7 (ie 18 people) He then asked the Mr Nimmo if he had lied to the jury or if he would be prepared to lie to a jury "even for Tommy Sheridan" the witness stated he had not and would not. Mr Prentice then ended his questions and Mr Nimmo was excused from the court.
35 comments:
It seems counter productive for Sheridan to seemingly imply a dishonest nature in former Militant members, given that he was one too...
whats a 'good honest socialist'when its at home? Where I come from you'd be hard pushed to find one in the local political scene. Thats not to say they don't exist but they aren't the ones who make the loudest noise.
Why did THAT meeting take place?, why did fellow socialists feel (at that time) a meeting with Sheridan was in order, they say "they feared it was having a detrimental effect on the SSP". This had NEVER been a consideration in the past. It has always been that a fellow socialists word was good. It is something totally out of character for fellow socialists to do this sort of thing, so why was it done?. Sheridan had made his position clear before THAT meeting was called. Why was his word brought into doubt?. If you think about it, it made no difference to the SSP if Sheridan had been found guilty of any wrong doing, they could have turned round and said many things to deflect any criticism of the SSP. There were no real problems for the SSP in any event. So why call THAT meeting...It didn`t make any sense to call it, there was no need to call it, so what was the real reason it was called?.
Come on, how can you say that Sheridan's actions and the newspaper stories would have caused no problems for the SSP with a straight face?
And since when has a principle of socialism been that all socialists are always telling the truth?
We will see later whether this is counter productive or not. It seems unlikely that he brought this up without reason. I expect it to refer to something that will come up later. Did Sheridan say who was supposed to have said this?
This affidavit is becoming a real problem for the prosecution and for the witnesses to the "9/11" meeting. The fact that it seems to imply that evidence is being held to use against Sheridan and doesnt mention a confession is a real spanner in the works.
Its fascinating stuff and really dramatic that this document only appeared in the last few days. It looks like a warrant was issued for the affidavit after Rosie Kane told the court that it was Alan McCombes that was responsible.
I think Sheridan has something on this that will come up when McCombes appears. As we now have the disputed minutes alongside this affidavit, its a gift for the defence who only need a doubt. The confession at the meeting is relevant to about half of the counts on the indictment and it would seem that all of those counts now hang on the video tape as McCombes affidavit has muddied the waters even more re the meeting.
Although it looks like McCombes was trying some sort of move, it does, however, weaken the defence argument that this was a plot, if it was, McCombes is a pretty foolish plotter who must have known that this would come up. It strengthens the defences chances of creating doubt re the meeting but counteracts their whole general story of the plot, as the plot seems to have only included a handful of people and they have made a bit of a hash of it, if they were plotting.
The interesting part is that, so far, the video seems to have been only shown to the only two people who have admitted to knowing about the affidavit.
Did this affidavit feature at all in the defamation proof?
"Come on, how can you say that Sheridan's actions and the newspaper stories would have caused no problems for the SSP with a straight face?"
Come on, how can you say that, its never caused any problems for ALL the other parties in the past, has it!. Where do I start to tell of how many times it has happened to other parties. We would be here for the next year just talking about the tories.
Come to think about it they all stuck together until it had been PROVED in court before turning on the person it concerned. What does that tell you.
No AFAIK the affidavit played no real part in the defamation case.
Just for clarity's sake, there is not one disputed minute. There is a minute that the contemporary minutes secretary affirms that she wrote and that so far all the attendees of the meeting say is an accurate account.
There is then another purported minute, which only appeared at the time of the defamation action, which records that the meeting went exactly the same way but Sheridan confessed nothing. Ms Scott says the document is not in her style, and as we saw with Stevie Nimmo today, it does not, according to witnesses, accurately reflect attendees at the meeting or who voted.
"Come to think about it they all stuck together until it had been PROVED in court before turning on the person it concerned. What does that tell you."
The only thing that really tells you is that Tories who probably knew the truth didn't feel it warranted any action until they were effectively backed into a legal corner.
Hello Shug, the minute is disputed, by the defence. It has been agreed by all of the witnesses so far, but is not accepted by Mr Sheridan.
If we could just be a little more cautious about stuff like that it would be good.
`The only thing that really tells you is that Tories who probably knew the truth didn't feel it warranted any action until they were effectively backed into a legal corner.`
Weak answer. It didn`t have any detrimental effect on the tories, did it. The same as it didn`t have any detrimental effect on the other parties. THAT meeting was called for another reason then was stated.
Who in their right minds would think that anyone would even say the things they claim Sheridan said, they expect people to believe an experienced politician like Sheridan (who many regard as a wordsmith off the english language) would put his neck into a hangman's noose?, Sheridan already knew when he sat down that some in front of him were less then friends. He had no reason to say the things they claimed he said. Its all not credible!.
I thought I inserted that in there, oops.
Anyway I was just saying for clarity that two minutes have been produced, one which the SSP witnesses have all testified is an accurate record of the meeting in 2004 but which Sheridan disputes, and another minute which emerged during the defamation action in 2006 which Sheridan says is accurate but which the SSP witnesses so far have said is not.
Shug, from following the trial so far, witnesses who have testified have said that the disputed minute wasn't "ratified". We now have a senior SSP member (McCombes) who has offered a slightly different version of events written before the disputed minute, and we have Ms Scott's notes that appeared at the start of the trial which offers another version (i.e. gun-running and prostitutes). That is apart from the "mystery minute" that the defence has put forward.
The jury must decide if they can send someone to jail on this based on it being "beyond doubt" (the jury in the defamation case rejected it). So there is no point in you telling us that you think it is accurate. As a piece of evidence it is highly disputed and we have still to hear the defence witnesses on the subject.
My points are on how this affidavit his affected the view of the disputed minute. In my opinion, unless the video mtape can be seen as proof beyond doubt of a confession at the meeting, the jury will have great difficulty reaching a guilty on what we have seen here - it's too inconclusive.
If Alan McCombes was plotting on behalf of Sheridan he couldn't have done a better job.
But we have still to see all of the evidence, so that might chage again.
I suspect that the prosecution are nearing the end of the stuff about the meeting though, and they would have hoped to have had a stronger case by now. The defence witnesses are likely to muddy the waters more.
One thing, the longer this trial goes on I am overwhelmed by the sheer incompetence and naivete of many in the pre split Scottish Socialist Party.
MINUTES for what was going to be a contentious meeting, the first thing that should happen when such a meeting is about to start is Suspend Standing Orders and ensure that no minutes or notes are taken.
"Who in their right minds would think that anyone would even say the things they claim Sheridan said, they expect people to believe an experienced politician like Sheridan (who many regard as a wordsmith off the english language) would put his neck into a hangman's noose?, Sheridan already knew when he sat down that some in front of him were less then friends. He had no reason to say the things they claimed he said. Its all not credible!."
Come on, is this really ok James?
Basically, your logic here asks us to believe that nobody would ever do anything that seems harmful or stupid, which...well, that's not true. If the SSP witness accounts are true, then we also have to consider that at this point (in their testimony) the witnesses said Sheridan had told two close friends that he was involved, so they knew as well, if the witness testimony is true.
"MINUTES for what was going to be a contentious meeting, the first thing that should happen when such a meeting is about to start is Suspend Standing Orders and ensure that no minutes or notes are taken."
Why?
"Basically, your logic here asks us to believe that nobody would ever do anything that seems harmful or stupid, which...well, that's not true."
No Shug, Sheridan is not stupid, thats the point!.
Sheridan does admit to making a huge mistake by admitting the Cupid's visits at the 9/11 meeting ""What am I doing confessing in front of these c**ts?"" on the tape McNeilage made. He didn't sound like he was giving himself credit for being intelligent on that.
If Tommy didn't admit anything because he's so intelligent, then the grand conspiracy to "do him in" must also be pretty intelligent to have stitched him up so comprehensively in the mind of the public, then co-ordinated their false testimonies in court so far.
The SSP is indeed lucky to have had so many intelligent people running the party at that time.
"Sheridan does admit to making a huge mistake by admitting the Cupid's visits at the 9/11 meeting ""What am I doing confessing in front of these c**ts?"" on the tape McNeilage made. He didn't sound like he was giving himself credit for being intelligent on that."
You can prove that was Sheridan?. I don`t think so. Even Carolyn Leckie did not say that, she said "sounds like". You shouldn`t be saying that Whatsy!, you are stating it as fact, when it has not yet been establish.
At first TS denied flat out that he was on the tape, then he conceded that he is on the tape, but "spliced" and mixed in with someone else's voice. It remarked that it was amazing what you can do with Photoshop, so why not with audio.
Audio splicing like that is obvious to the kind of forensic linguistics workers the crown have cited as expert witnesses, so it'll be interesting to see what happens when they're up.
Jim you're absolutely right about that. What were they thinking of taking minutes? Morons.
Re: You can prove that was Sheridan?. I don`t think so. Even Carolyn Leckie did not say that, she said "sounds like". You shouldn`t be saying that Whatsy!, you are stating it as fact, when it has not yet been establish.
It's what has been presented in court so far. I thought it was self-evident that this was evidence that is disputed, but that is the same for pretty much all evidence and testimony in this trial so far.
I can put alleged in front of every mention of every quote from that tape if you like, but it won't make for easy reading.
James - any problem with this?
Also - in Leckie's most recent testimony I don't recall her qualifying her comments regarding the tape with the voice "sounding like" Sheridan, but I certainly could have forgotten that.
It's actually pretty easy to spot "splicing". I imagine if the video has been submitted by the crown as a piece of evidence that they may have forensic voice/video/recording experts to discuss this topic, whether it was spliced or not and whether it may be Sheridan's voice or not
"Jim you're absolutely right about that. What were they thinking of taking minutes? Morons."
Really, why? If I was in a political party and they had a meeting of such magnitude, I'd expect them to record it for the party's records. As well, I think it'd be obvious given what's happened with Tommy Sheridan that a party in such a situation would wish to preserve people's statements and actions.
"Audio splicing like that is obvious" - it's as plain as a pikestaff, it's impossible to get the waveforms to match, splicing would never in a million years stand up to forensic analysis.
The question on a lot of folks lips is: "Is Tommy Sheridan working for the spooks, or is he being undermined by the spooks?"
It's high-time that Alex Prentice produced a piece of "incontrovertible" evidence or abandoned this trial.
Ok, do people not think that that QC's and the PF know more about how they need to run a trial than random commenters do?
I suspect some of the people opining on the legitimacy of the trial or Prentice's methods are upset at the situation Sheridan finds himself in, but that doesn't make any difference, I'm afraid. Just because the prosecution don't put all their evidence out on a plate in one massive and impenetrable flurry does not mean they don't have a competent case to present to trial. If they didn't it wouldn't have got past the PF never mind to this stage.
1.12. Let's just see it through to the end, shall well?
Shouldnt we be leaving discussion about the validity of the tape until the time it becomes the issue in court?
Whatsy, I dont think you can say that the public have a comprehensive view on this. the jury are the publics representatives in a court and, so far, the only jury to judge the evidence decided in favour of Sheridan. Lets wait to hear what the jury decide this time.
My experience is that the public have a mixed view on this, but all we can take as evidence is the last jury decision and the election result, both of which put Sheridan ahead of his accusers so far.
"Also - in Leckie's most recent testimony I don't recall her qualifying her comments regarding the tape with the voice "sounding like" Sheridan, but I certainly could have forgotten that."
I think it was Carolyn Leckie?. May have been one of the other ssp members.
I know Colin Fox stated it was Tommy Sheridan.
"When asked if it was Sheridan on the tape she said that it “sounded like” him,"
http://tinyurl.com/35ymd7z
`If they didn't it wouldn't have got past the PF never mind to this stage.`
You are wrong again Shug.
http://tinyurl.com/nn7gqz
Shug, the point is that for people who do spend time in courts, we usually see the case weighing heavily in favour of the prosecution by "half-time". Prentice does actually have to lay it all out when its his "turn" (he isnt a PF or a QC btw).
In almost every case, if we stopped short after the prosecution witnesses, the accused would look guilty. After his witnesses and evidence have gone, he is on the back foot and is limited to what Sheridan "lays out on a plate" before him.
So, I can understand the poster who asks where the evidence is.
However, we have a long way to go and we will see how he is faring after the cupids evidence, the hotel party evidence, the evidence of Colin Fox's subornation charge and, crucially, the tape. Until then we cant say whether or not this should have made it to court.
Alex Prentice in particular is known for leading with his best evidence first so I am surprised that he is not further ahead by now.
Linda
The AD is a QC - he is a Solicitor Advocate (ie has rights of audience in the High Court), who has been appointed a QC. He is not a member of the Faculty of Advocates, and so does not wear a wig. However, he does wear a "silk's" gown - you will note it is the same type as Paul McBride's.
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