Contrasting styles of lawyers are striking

BEFORE noon yesterday, Mr James Price QC completed his day and a halfs closing statement to the jury and sat down, and Lord Gareth…

BEFORE noon yesterday, Mr James Price QC completed his day and a halfs closing statement to the jury and sat down, and Lord Gareth Williams stood up to put the case of Albert Reynolds, who sat (as always) in the front row of the court between his daughter, Miriam, and his solicitor, Ms Pamela Cassidy.

The contrast between the two lawyers was striking. Mr Price had been by turn supercilious, incredulous, sarcastic, sometimes petulant, occasionally openly contemptuous of the plaintiff, delivering his rhetorical questions to the jury in the languid, modulated accent of his Eton education. At no stage did he attempt to make any connection with the likely daily experiences of members of the jury. And the man who criticised Mr Reynolds for not being concise in his answers laboured his points to the extent of killing them with tedium.

Lord Williams spoke in the soft, lilting accent of his native Wales. He was avuncular, a little self deprecating, fiercely indignant on behalf of his client, and immensely flattering to the jury. He lost no opportunity to suggest that they, he and Albert Reynolds represented the decent common man against the great might of the biggest media organisation the world had ever known, the Murdoch corporation.

"Mr Reynolds's attitude is: `Never mind. I have a jury of the people. Multi millions are as nothing before you.' If you think what I'm saying is half reasonable, stand firm, hold fast. Our life is not to be dictated to by the Murdoch group."

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In a breath taking reference to the Irish miscarriage of justice cases which consumed the headlines for several years in the late 1980s, he said: "It used to be said that an Irishman would never get a fair trial in London. Well, he's having one now, isn't he? Because of you, not the Sunday Times."

While Mr Price had taken the jury over the intricacies of the events of the three days preceding the fall of the government again and again, risking losing their attention in his meticulous re examination of all the details, Lord Williams informed them tartly at the outset that he would not "take a day and a half" to say what he had to say.

It was all very simple. Two years ago, the Sunday Times had done Albert Reynolds a "very great wrong". They knew that then and they knew that now. Why could they not simply use that little word "sorry".

After dismissing Mr Price's case as "smears", "tiffle tattle" and "shameful", he went on to dismiss Mr Price himself as no more than the hired help. I do not criticise Mr Price for a second. He acted upon his riding instructions.

If Mr Price was dismissive of Albert Reynolds, Lord Williams was contemptuous of the author of the article, Alan Ruddock, to whom he awarded "nought out of eight" on the basis of eight criteria for responsible journalism.

But the greatest odium was reserved for Fergus Finlay, the "snake in the grass", the man "who lurked in the darkness", "Dick Spring's creature" who "did a runner" and could not face the cross examination which would reveal the truth. That was that he was "the real gombeen man", the person who telephoned Dick Spring to suggest he ring Eoghan Fitzsimons on that fateful Wednesday morning, the man who, in reality, was responsible for bringing down the government.