Irving v. Lipstadt

 1IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE
1996 I. No. 113
QUEEN'S BENCH DIVISION
 2Royal Courts of Justice
 3Strand, London
 4Thursday, 17th February 2000
 5
 6Before:
 7MR JUSTICE GRAY
 8
 9B E T W E E N: DAVID JOHN CAWDELL IRVING
10Claimant -and-
11(1) PENGUIN BOOKS LIMITED
12(2) DEBORAH E. LIPSTADT
13Defendants
14The Claimant appeared in person
15MR RICHARD RAMPTON Q.C. (instructed by Messrs Davenport Lyons and Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of the First and
16Second Defendants
17MISS HEATHER ROGERS (instructed by Davenport Lyons) appeared on behalf of the First Defendant Penguin Books Limited
18MR ANTHONY JULIUS (of Mishcon de Reya) appeared on behalf of
19the Second Defendant Deborah Lipstadt
20
21(Transcribed from the stenographic notes of Harry Counsell
&Company, Clifford's Inn, Fetter Lane, London EC4
22Telephone: 020-7242-9346)
23(This transcript is not to be reproduced without the written permission of Harry Counsell &Company)
24
25PROCEEDINGS - DAY TWENTY-TWO
26

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 1<Day 22.
 2(10.35 a.m.) Thursday, 17th February 2000.
 3< Professor Evans, recalled.
 4< Cross-Examined by Mr Irving, continued.
 5MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Yes, Mr Irving?
 6MR IRVING:    May it please the court. My apologies for this
 7late start.
 8MR JUSTICE GRAY:    That is quite all right.
 9MR IRVING:    My Lord, today we will certainly advance to the end
10of 1942 and I will certainly finish on Monday.
11MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Good.
12MR IRVING:    So that is the target that I have set. Professor
13Evans, good morning.
14A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Good morning.
15Q. [Mr Irving]     Would you please go to page 306 of your report? If we
16could just before that go briefly to page 302 on paragraph
174? It is a minor point but we will take in our stride.
18You criticise on line 4 of paragraph 4 that "Irving all
19too often provides inaccurate references or no source
20references at all".
21A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
22Q. [Mr Irving]     Now, on the facing page on the bottom you have quoted
23three documents from the Public Records Office, Foreign
24Office, archives?
25A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
26Q. [Mr Irving]     Did you find those yourself or were they from my discovery

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 1or from my ----
 2A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     These were found by one of my researchers in the Public
 3Record Office.
 4Q. [Mr Irving]     In the Public Record Office.
 5A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Where there are documents that I found in your discovery,
 6I have said so.
 7Q. [Mr Irving]     So they made no use of the identical documents in my
 8discovery provided to your solicitors then or of the
 9reference numbers that I gave in the footnotes of my
10books?
11A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     No, we went straight to the Public Record Office.
12Q. [Mr Irving]     How did they know which of these tens of thousands of
13files to look in if it was not from the source references
14I gave in the book?
15A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     That was, I presume, how we knew.
16Q. [Mr Irving]     We now advance to page 306. You, of course, have strong
17criticism ----
18A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     If I may just add to that, that I think these concern
19British Ambassadorial reports, that is right, and I note
20at the top of page 301 that you footnote those reports.
21Q. [Mr Irving]     Yes, thank you. In other words, I give sufficient
22references for you and your research to find documents
23like that?
24A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     In some instances, yes, in some instances you do not.
25Q. [Mr Irving]     Yes, well, we will come to those instances later on. I do
26not think it is enormously important, but one or two I am

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 1going to pick off like a sniper. You have general
 2criticism of a lady called Ingrid Weckert. You consider
 3that her work is anti-semitic and that she is a neo-Nazi,
 4and these are reasons why one should not use her, is that
 5right?
 6A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     She is not a serious historian. Her work is anti-semitic
 7propaganda.
 8Q. [Mr Irving]     I do not want to labour the point, but we had a discussion
 9several days ago, you may remember, in which I asked you
10do revisionists ever turn up anything useful? Do they
11ever do any useful research or would you totally ignore
12the body of evidence the revisionists provide?
13A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     I would ignore it unless ----
14Q. [Mr Irving]     Ignore it?
15A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     --- I mean, unless you count yourself as a revisionist.
16Q. [Mr Irving]     This was going to be my -- well anticipated. Do you
17consider me to be a revisionist whom you would ignore the
18work I do?
19A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     That is what you call yourself. I mean, I have said
20repeatedly that you have turned up in the course of your
21career a number of documents of varying value, but some
22are valuable.
23MR JUSTICE GRAY:    We are slightly missing the point on Ingrid
24Weckert, are we not? I think the point that Professor
25Evans makes (and you may want to deal with this) is that
26she is, as he describes her, not a serious historian but

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 1an anti-semitic propagandist and you cite her seven times
 2in, is it Goebbels -- yes, Goebbels.
 3MR IRVING:    My Lord everyone is anticipating very well what
 4I am about to ask this morning.
 5MR JUSTICE GRAY:    Except me.
 6MR IRVING:    I was going to get on to this. At the beginning of
 7paragraph 6 on page 306, you tend to talk a great deal
 8about the book by Ingrid Weckert?
 9A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes.
10Q. [Mr Irving]     Now, why do you do this? Is there any evidence at all
11that I have had the book or I that I have used the book or
12that I have relied on the book?
13A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     Yes, there is.
14Q. [Mr Irving]     What is this book then?
15A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     There is a -- in a number of my footnotes ----
16Q. [Mr Irving]     Are you referring to footnote 162?
17A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     154 and 160.
18Q. [Mr Irving]     Yes.
19A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     And ----
20Q. [Mr Irving]     Is that a book?
21A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     And 158 and 162, and I understand that these are articles
22which were put together then to make a book.
23Q. [Mr Irving]     You reference the actual book on footnote 159, is that
24right?
25A. [Professor Richard John Evans]     That is right, yes.
26Q. [Mr Irving]     

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