Archive/File: people/i/irving.david/libel.suit/transcripts/day030.02
Last-Modified: 2000/07/25

   MR IRVING:  It does not give a complete record of my speech, my
        Lord.  It omits major parts which, in fact, as your
        Lordship would see from the bundle of the letters I wrote

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        before I even was aware the tape existed when I was
        applying to all the television companies for the content
        of the speech, if your Lordship were to look at the
        letters that I wrote in April 1993 to all the television
        companies frantically trying to find anyone who had a copy
        of the original film, those are round about page 19, those
        are typical letters.  Then I swore affidavits in Australia
        in 1994, that is long before this action was initiated,
        the present action, saying what was in it; the fact that
        I reprimanded the people for making these stupid slogans,
        and the fact that in the part of the speech that is cut
        out I said to the audience, "You people are all young.
        I am now old.  It is the other way round.  It used to be
        the old people sitting in front of me and me, the young
        person, talking to me, but now you, people, are young,
        I am old.  I am talking to you.  You are Germany's
        future.  The world's eyes are upon you, you have to start
        behaving".  That material, unfortunately, is part of the
        material that has been cut out of the video tape.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, so, I mean, what you are really saying
        is that even in its unedited form, that is to say, before
        the Defendants, as it were, got their hands on it, if
        indeed they did, it gives a false impression because the
        original team -- was it an Australian team -- did not
        actually video, or This Week or whoever it was, the whole
        of what you said?

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   MR IRVING:  The particular one which we have is the This Week
        raw footage and it stops and starts, if I can put it like that?
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  No, I appreciate that.
   MR IRVING:  Therefore, it is an incomplete record of my
        speech.  It may be a complete record or give a good image,
        and I admit this, of the kind of atmosphere and the flag
        waving, and this kind of thing, and I possibly even say
        that against myself, but as far as the content of my
        speech is concerned, it is a dodgy record.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes.  It seems to me what you are telling me
        now really does not amount to an objection as to the
        admissibility of the tape, but is rather a submission you
        want to make that it is so heavily edited that it does not
        give a fair impression of what actually happened.  It
        seems to me, perhaps, to follow that the way to deal with
        the problem is not to rule the tape inadmissible, but to
        let you, if you have not already done so, indicate what it
        is that has not been taped which would give a completely
        different impression of what you said at that meeting.
   MR IRVING:  Not only that, my Lord, but also the implication,
        the false implication, that may be given that because
        certain people are visible on the video, therefore, I knew
        them which, of course, easily obtained by cross-cutting
        and by cutting out large chunks.  I would have preferred
        your Lordship to make a simple ruling that the tape may be

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        used as evidence for the atmosphere at that meeting, the
        kind of people who were there possibly even, but not as
        evidence for Mr Irving's contact with them.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, I do not wholly disagree with that.  I
        think the only thing I would add is there were some people
        there, and I am afraid the names are not actually at the
        front of my mind at the moment.
   MR IRVING:  Christian Worch.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Althans was one, was he not?
   MR IRVING:  Althans was not there.  I think the relevant names,
        as far as Halle are concerned -- I am sure Mr Rampton or
        Miss Rogers will correct me -- Christian Worch, who was
        the organizer.  I saw the video again last night.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  There is no issue about you knew he was there
        and indeed you had some ----
   MR IRVING:  I knew he was there -- well, I found him there, put
        it like that.  I travelled down there with his wife Uschi.
        She was there.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Who was the other one who did the speech at
        the beginning with the slightly sort of receding hair?
   MR IRVING:  I think the allegation is that Thomas Dienel was
        there, a man called Thomas Dienel.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, he was there, I think you accept that,
        and I would be inclined to conclude from the video that it
        was pretty obvious you realized he was there because he
        made the opening and closing speech.  You may deny that,

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        but I mean that would seem to me to be the natural inference.
   MR IRVING:  I shall certainly deny it when the time comes, my
        Lord, because I have looked at the video again last
        night.  We are not visible together on the video and
        I have no notion who this man is.  There must have been a
        couple of thousand people there whose names I do not know.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Again, you see, one has to look at the
        totality of the evidence, including your diary entries, as
        to how long you were there.  It is the sort of thing I
        have to make my mind up about, I think.
   MR IRVING:  In that case, my Lord, if you look at the
        affidavits and things which are contained in the bundle
        which I just gave you, you will see that I state:  "10
        minutes, made the speech and left" which is as far as the
        demonstration was concerned.  I went there, spoke for 10
        minutes or five minutes, then got straight in my car and
        drove off.  So whoever else is visible on the video for
        the remaining half an hour or three-quarters of an hour,
        it is neither here nor there.  Those affidavits, of
        course, were sworn back in '94 or '93, long before this
        action was commenced.
                  Of course, in my closing statement I am going to
        resist most energetically the notion that I had any
        knowledge of who those particular people were.  A number
        of the people, I am quite happy to acknowledge having

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        known them, but I am certainly not going to admit knowing
        people like Thomas Dienel.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I think you follow the way I am thinking at
        the moment, and say anything else you want to, which is
        that I do not think there really is a reason for not
        admitting the video, but there is certainly every reason
        to listen to what you say about why it is unrepresentative
        of what happened.
   MR IRVING:  Can we be specific which video we are talking
        about? There were three videos, my Lord.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  The Halle video.
   MR IRVING:  Yes, but the three videos which were pictured on
        the photograph I gave your Lordship this morning, there
        are three videos.  There are two raw videos and one
        broadcast video as broadcast by Tames TV and another one.
        I think we ought to know which one we are talking about as
        being admissible.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  As I say, I only saw one and I think you told
        me (but I may be wrong about this) that this was an edited
        version of the edited This Week version.
   MR RAMPTON:  No.
   MR IRVING:  No.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Pause a moment.
   MR IRVING:  I think the one that you were shown, my Lord, was
        the raw version.
   MR RAMPTON:  Yes.  That is all there is.

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   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is No. 223 in this little pile in your
        photograph?  The top two are unedited material.
   MR IRVING:  It was 226 or 227 you were shown, my Lord.  It
        could have been either because I have checked both of
        them.  They both contain the same footage whereas 223 is
        the version as broadcast.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I see, right.  What is the difference between
        226 and 227 then?
   MR IRVING:  I have had a look at them and they appear to
        contain much the same raw material.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I see.
   MR IRVING:  I do not know whether they are dupes or what.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I think my comment still applies; it
        seems to me that is something that is legitimately
        available to the Defendants to use as evidence, subject to
        your entitlement to make the sort of comments that you
        have been making to me this morning.
   MR IRVING:  I certainly shall and I shall make my comments
        about the manner in which they withheld it from me,
        knowing that I have been looking for it for five years.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  That I am not following at the moment, but
        that seems, perhaps, not to go to admissibility but to
        damages.
   MR IRVING:  It does, well, to conduct of the case ----
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It comes to the same thing.
   MR IRVING:  --- which is a matter of cost as well.

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   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, maybe.  Do you want to say any more about it?
   MR IRVING:  Not on the Halle video, my Lord.  The other bundle
        E only went to the conduct of the case, my Lord.  That was
        the evidence that they had withheld the -- which now
        brings us to your Lordship's list.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Before we get on to that, shall I ----
   MR RAMPTON:  I believe this hearing is in open court.
        Mr Irving has made some very grave allegations which, so
        far as I know, are completely illfounded against my solicitors.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  I am not going to go into it at the moment.
   MR RAMPTON:  No, I know, but I think, in fairness, they ought
        to have an opportunity to tell your Lordship briefly what
        did happen.  I only say this, that what your Lordship has
        seen is not edited in the sense that somebody has sat in a
        cutting room cutting it.  It is the film shot by the
        cameraman.  One knows that it is entire because the timing
        thing, the little black oblong at the left-hand side, is
        continuous.  So if it has been edited, it has been edited
        in that sense simply because the cameraman got bored and
        went and had a cup tea or whatever.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Well, that is not quite the way I would look
        at it.  I suspect the cameraman, whoever he may have been,
        was looking for things that he thought would be good,
        juicy broadcasting material.

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   MR RAMPTON:  No, I was being slightly frivolous, but if there
        has been any editing, it is by the become cameraman's own selection.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Yes, I follow that point.
   MR RAMPTON:  And not by us.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  It is a question of what he chose and what he
        did not chose to include.
   MR IRVING:  My Lord, the cameraman was, I think, Michael
        Schmidt who was this cameraman ----
   MR RAMPTON:  That is as may be.  He is not my servant or agent
        and we have nothing to do with the way that film looks on
        the screen.
   MR IRVING:  Well, it goes to his Lordship's comment that the
        cameraman would have picked what interested him.
   MR JUSTICE GRAY:  Mr Julius, do we really benefit by going into
        detail as to the history of these videos?
   MR JULIUS:  I do not think so, my Lord, and I am not proposing
        to do that.  If I may, I will just make three points.  The
        first point is nothing was withheld from Mr Irving.  On
        the contrary, this is a tape on which we place some
        reliance.  The suggestion that we would not want to show
        it to Mr Irving or to show it to the court is, of course, absurd.
                  The second point I make is that no undertaking was broken.
                  The third point I would make is the point that

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        has just been made by Mr Rampton, and that is that the
        tape your Lordship saw was not edited in any way.

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