U2 lawyers throw the book at band's former stylist

U2 had left the building, so the crowds were thinner in Dublin's Circuit Civil Court as day two of the case against their former stylist got under way.

Lola Cashman - who disputes the group's claim to ownership of a Stetson hat, trousers and other memorabilia she says were given to her by Bono during a 1987 tour - returned to the stand.

But the presence in court of a rock star from an earlier era lent an air of intrigue to the proceedings.

What was Barry Devlin of Horslips doing here, we wondered? The answer came half-an-hour into Ms Cashman's cross-examination, after U2's counsel invited her to repeat a claim of responsibility for creating Bono's "iconic" Stetson look during the Joshua Tree tour. She duly obliged. At which point the band's lawyers produced a TV set, and played a short documentary clip of the U2 singer buying a Stetson in New Mexico, before Ms Cashman joined the tour. Mr Devlin had been with Bono, counsel said, and could corroborate the time and place.

Was this the smoking hat that would undermine the stylist's until-now confident demeanour? No, it turned out. Accused of exaggerating her role with the band, the unflappable Ms Cashman shrugged, said she knew when she joined the tour that Bono liked wearing hats, but added: "It takes more than a Stetson to create a look."

Besides, she insisted, the hat in the TV clip was not the one famously featured in the film Rattle & Hum.

After the New Mexican hat dance, the U2 lawyers threw the book at her. Quoting extracts from Inside the Zoo, her memoir of the time with the band, Paul Sreenan SC, portrayed a woman who was never well disposed to her employers. Before leaving England, on page 12, she was fearful that working with "spoilt rock stars, their wives and entourage" might be "a nightmare".

By page 15, arriving in San Francisco for one of a series of cancelled meetings, she was already "p***** off" and wondering if Bono had changed his mind about hiring her. If so, "he would jolly well have to inform me, because I wasn't going to go quietly". She subsequently gave the band a dressing down ("rude f*****"), then graphically told the head of the group's US management where she could "stick" the job. And that was still only page 24.

Mr Sreenan said that despite the book's detail, it nowhere mentioned her receipt of the disputed memorabilia. Not even of the hat, which she had told the court was given to her by a "joyous, playful Bono, prancing around in his underpants" after the tour's closing concert. Ms Cashman responded: "It's not that kind of book". Whereupon the U2 counsel referred her to page 109, and her account of a dinner party at which giggling friends quizzed her about the band members (in more ways than one).

"So Lola, who's got the biggest dick?" read Mr Sreenan, quoting the stylist's account of her friends' line of questioning. According to the book, Ms Cashman teasingly told them that information from the band's dressing room was "private", before adding: "But it isn't Bono." The stylist and Mr Sreenan were among the few people in court who kept a straight face during this exchange. Ms Cashman insisted the gifts were not mentioned in the book, "because I didn't think it a big deal".

Her counsel called no other witnesses. Judge Matthew Deery reserved judgment until next week.