This I had to point out many days ago at this stage to Sam. But if he thinks that the protection afforded journalists is somehow trumped by the Medical Act then what can I say, he's obviously the expert here.Medical Act 1983 is what you need to be looking at also fmk. It allows a Court Order.
Sam's expertise, however, doesn't extend to actually having read the Medical Act. If he had he'd know that the matter - if it is to be taken further and not just dropped - needs to be taken to the county court, not as he's just authoritatively told us "through the Crown Court."
Sam keeps calling the alleged contents of the Mail's safe an affidavit. Why? Does he know something Freeman's QC doesn't know? Because she refers to it as "a witness statement or an affidavit" - she is unsure which and there is a difference between the two.Affidavit will be Daily Mails insurance to run Suttons story without any evidence
If we for a moment assumed it was an affidavit, it would only count as perjury if used in a judicial proceeding. Which, so far, it hasn't been.
Again there's the claim that what Sutton said is under oath. A claim not fully supported by what Freeman's QC has actually said. If the "lie under oath" relates to the alleged contents of the Mail's safe, well as has already been said, if it does prove to be an affidavit, it's only perjury if used in a judicial proceeding, which - one more time - so far it has not yet been. If the "lie under oath" relates to Sutton's DCMS evidence, let's make this clear one more time too: Collins wants the power to make telling porkies to Commons Committees perjury, he doesn't currently have it.Sutton has said opposite to DCMS he has to Lawton under oath. That then is Perjury if a lie under oath
So, no perjury, despite what Rumpole of the Velodrome insists.
How 'bout we park all this nit-picking of Sam's evident expertise for a moment and cut to the quick: what is he actually trying to demonstrate here? That the Jiffy bag story was a lie, that there was no Jiffy bag? Cause, you know, I think the boat has sailed on that one. Is he trying to prove that Sutton lied to the DCMS when he said he had "no knowledge that any laws were broken or any anti-doping trafficking regulations were breached"? Cause, well, honestly, I'm not sure that's a good place to be going. Is he trying to say Sutton can't be believed? Personally, I think Sutton himself said that far more eloquently and entertainingly than any formulation Sam has come up with yet.
So, what's the point, the vain hope that Wiggins will come good on his word and actually sue the Mail, and run the risk of a lot worse coming out in the wash? That'd be about as clever as Oscar Wilde doing the Marquess of Queensberry for libel. But without the hope that Wiggins's next book would come even close to Reading Gaol.
Or is it about somehow trying to recover Wiggins's image? If it is it's quite counterproductive, cause so far Wiggins is being kept well out of this story, with the exception of Sam's Trojan efforts to link him to it.