Tommy Sheridan in courtroom blitz at 'drama queen' Rosie Kane

• Former MSP Rosie Kane was told by Tommy Sheridan in court that she was a frustrated actress and a drama queen Picture: PA

In heated exchanges with Rosie Kane, during which each resorted to shouting at the other, Sheridan branded her a frustrated actress and a drama queen.

She said he spouted nonsense while on a kamikaze mission, and that his ego had gone "on the rampage".

Sheridan was allowed to cross-examine Ms Kane while standing behind counsel's lectern in the well of the High Court in Glasgow.

Previously, he had been kept in the dock beside his wife and co-accused, Gail, but the trial judge, Lord Bracadale, relented in the face of submissions by Sheridan.

Sheridan, 46, and his wife, also 46, are accused of, and deny, giving perjured evidence at a defamation action in 2006 in the Court of Session in Edinburgh, when he was awarded 200,000 damages against the News of the World, which had published allegations about his private life.

It has been claimed by a number of witnesses in the current trial that after an initial story in the Sunday tabloid, which referred only to an unnamed MSP, Sheridan confessed at a meeting of the Scottish Socialist Party's executive committee that he was the person and that he had visited Cupid's, a swingers' club in Manchester.

• Mystery man's identity revealed

Last week, Sheridan sacked his QC and decided to defend himself. At his first cross-examination, he made to leave the dock and conduct the questioning from behind a lectern, used by counsel and situated in front of the jury box. However, Lord Bracadale asked him to return.

Sheridan said he had been worried about projecting his voice, but the judge assured him that the microphones used in the recording of the proceedings would be able to pick him up from the dock.

Yesterday, as the trial resumed after the weekend break, Lord Bracadale told the jury: "You remember last week I indicated to Mr Sheridan that I would prefer if he conducted cross-examination from the dock. Having heard submissions on that matter and reconsidered it, I am going to permit Mr Sheridan to ask questions in cross-examination from the lectern."

Ms Kane had started her evidence last Friday, and she faced another hour of questioning by Sheridan. She explained that she had cancelled an appearance on television's Question Time following the meeting at which it is alleged Sheridan confessed.She had not wanted the issue to be raised on live television, and have to deal with it, she said.

Sheridan denies confessing, and insists he denied the newspaper allegations, but Ms Kane said: "I phoned Question Time and cancelled my appearance, which I would not have done if I did not have a damned good reason to do so."

Sheridan suggested to Ms Kane that she had made up parts of her evidence, to make him look even worse.

"No, there was no way of making you look worse than the way you looked," she responded.

Sheridan accused her of creating fantasies, and being attached to an "anti-Sheridan faction" within the party, which had wanted him ousted as leader because he was "getting too big for his boots".

Ms Kane asked why there would be an anti-Sheridan faction as he was synonymous with the SSP, and said there had been a group within the party, but added: "It is what your paranoia is making you add to it… 'anti-Tommy faction'. You were on a course of destruction, on a kamikaze (mission], and you still are."

Sheridan put it to her: "Your loyalty is to the faction, not to the truth."

Ms Kane said: "No. We were thrown into turmoil by your activities, and the road you took after that (pursuing a defamation case) put everything at risk because your ego was on the rampage."

She said Sheridan's suggestion that she and others had been determined to oust him as leader was untrue."

Sheridan said: "You are a frustrated actress and a drama queen. You tried to bring me down four years ago by telling lies in court. You failed."

Ms Kane replied: "I have not told lies."

The trial continues.