YAWN

I actually fell asleep in court this afternoon. We were let in downstairs because some surveillance officers were giving evidence behind a screen. I got a tap on the foot from a journalist. I don't think they were as bored as I was. I think my coat is a bit too warm and sleeping bag like.

In the morning another Cumbrian cop turned up, to back up his pals description the previous day of seeing the guys training military style. Seems he backed it up a bit too well.

"So you didn't just copy his statement at a later date?" asked Mr defence..

"No."

"Can I remind you you are under oath? let me ask that again..."

"No."

"I'll read your friends statement, line by line, stopping to let you read a line of yours..."

They matched exactly, all the way through. To the letter.

"And you didn't copy your mates statement?"

"No."

We missed the first bit of screened officers giving evidence but when we came in for the second half the defence were making a big deal about the fact that the written statements didn't match up to the photographs and video evidence they provided, which seemed to amount to film of the guys (including Muktar Said Ibrahim) waking up in the morning and scratching their butts etc, and film of them running haphazardly down a slope with a few of them doing sit-ups at the end. There were also 70 photographs of them playing football.

In a written statement one of the covert surveillance guys said that whilst playing football they would often hit the deck and mime throwing hand grenades, or mine holding rifles.

"Go through them slowly and tell me which of the 70 photographs you took show this?"

"None of them."

Also in a written statement they refer to "leopard crawling" and "anti ambush training".

We watched again the tape of the guys running down the hill, some of them slowing down at the back, with maybe three of them doing sit ups, this time with the sound up. You can hear the voice of the officer giving evidence describing this as "Anti-Ambush training".

Telegraph
BBC
Newham recorder