"WHEN dealing with a fairly long trial, sometimes something comes along which lights up the whole landscape," counsel for the Sunday Times, Mr James Price QC, said in outlining four defining moments for the jury yesterday.
The first concerned Mr Eoghan Fitzsimons's notes of his recollection of the events surrounding Mr Reynolds's two speeches to the Dail on the days preceding the collapse of the Fianna Fail/Labour coalition.
"Mr Fitzsimons's notes gave the game away," said Mr Price. According to these notes, Mr Fitzsimons was called to the Taoiseach's office on the Monday where they discussed the Duggan case and its implications.
"He (Mr Reynolds) was very concerned about it," according to Mr Fitzsimons. It would mean that he would have to mention it in his speech on the Tuesday, and ministers Mr Noel Dempsey and Mrs Geoghegan-Quinn would have to correct their earlier misleading statements.
As a result, Mr Reynolds asked Mr Fitzsimons to ask Mr Whelehan to postpone his swearing-in until after the Dail debate, pointing out that mentioning the Duggan case in the Dail would be "catastrophic" for him.
However, after he came back with Mr Whelehan's negative reply to this suggestion he was called to the office of the Minister for Justice, Mrs Geoghegan Quinn. There he learned that the Duggan case would not be mentioned in the speech after all.
"I was very concerned as, if the Duggan case was not going to be used, the Dail would be misled," he had written. He put his views in writing to the Taoiseach.
"How did these notes come to be written?" Mr Price asked rhetorically. He suggested that Mr Reynolds was worried Mr Fitzsimons was "going to let the cat out of the bag" and sought a report, asking Mr Fitzsimons to dictate it to a tape which he would have transcribed and then destroy.
Mr Fitzsimons wanted his own copy, so he had the notes transcribed and took a copy. "Mr Reynolds read it. It was damning," Mr Price told the jury. He asked him to shred both copies, according to Mr Fitzsimons.
Mr Price dismissed the evidence Mr Reynolds gave earlier in the hearing that he had only asked him to shred his copy. "Members of the jury, that is a fairy story, he said.
The second thing which cast a field of light, he said, was the covering up and concealing of Mr Fitzsimons's letter to Mr Reynolds containing Mr Whelehan's "letter of advices", setting out his explanation for the delay in the Smyth case. This would show he was "100 per cent right".
"What might the Labour Party have thought if they saw that letter from Mr Whelehan? What might the Dail have thought?" he asked. "It does not square with the speech given in the Dail on the Wednesday about Harry Whelehan.
"What does Mr Reynolds do? He asked him (Mr Fitzsimons) to remove the last paragraph of his letter which deals with Mr Whelehan's letter."
He dismissed Mr Reynolds's explanation, given in cross-examination, that Mr Fitzsimons's letter had come back to him without Mr Whelehan's letter, and he did not want to file it with the reference but without the letter, so he asked Mr Fitzsimons to delete the reference.
The third flash of light came with the evidence that all the passages in the speech drafted by Mr Fitzsimons and delivered by Mr Reynolds on the Wednesday, which upheld the good name of Harry Whelehan, were removed.
"Why carefully omit all those passages from Mr Fitzsimons's draft which preserve the president of the High Court's good name and integrity? It is in startling contrast to his attitude when trying to persuade him to resign for the good of the nation.
"Why the change? The answer is, Mr Reynolds had a problem. In order to preserve the government and coax Labour back, he had to say Mr Whelehan never should have been appointed president of the High Court," he said.
The last thing which "lit up the landscape" was around Dr Michael Woods's note in his diary concerning the events, in which Mr Reynolds seemed to be saying to Dr Woods that Mr Whelehan could have the first High Court vacancy that came up.
Mr Reynolds had been cross-examined on this, in the course of which he had said: "I want the whole truth to come out in this court."
"A couple of days later on the following Monday I got into an argument with Mr Reynolds over a handwritten note from Mr Spring," continued Mr Price. "I asked Mr Reynolds this: `Last week you said to this jury that you wanted every aspect of the truth to come out. Is that true?'
"Mr Reynolds said: `We were talking about a note from a colleague.' In relation to that particular issue I made it clear that this was the position." When asked by the presiding judge, Mr Justice French, to clarify, he had repeated: "That was in relation to that issue which we were discussing at the time."
"That must be one of the most astonishing exchanges ever heard in a court of law," commented Mr Price. "Mr Reynolds says he wants every aspect of the truth to come out and then realises that will cause problems and says he does not want every aspect of the truth to come out.
"These were flashes of light."