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 . P-8 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? . P-9 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 . P-10 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, . P-11 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 . P-12 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. . P-13 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. . P-14 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. . P-15 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 . P-16 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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