Tommy Sheridan 'starting to believe his own lies', court is told

Rosie Kane, 49, made the allegation during an at times colourful and heated two-hour cross-examination by Sheridan at the High Court in Glasgow yesterday. She said he was "actually starting to believe himself".

Ms Kane recalled being "inspired" by Sheridan in her early days in politics, but accused him of branding her a liar and sending her mother to the grave with that slur against her.

She also spoke of feeling for Sheridan's wife, Gail, when he confessed to visiting a sex club.

"Tommy, you went to Cupid's. You told me, you told me," Ms Kane said.

Sheridan's response to her evidence included saying she was a fantasist with a very vivid imagination. "Are you still involved in the amateur dramatics society?" he asked at one point.

In 2006, Sheridan, 46, won 200,000 damages in a defamation action against the News of the World at the Court of Session in Edinburgh. Now, he and his wife Gail, 46, are accused of giving perjured evidence during the litigation. Both deny the charge.

Ms Kane told the court she was a support worker with the Scottish Association for Mental Health, working with vulnerable people in the Maryhill area of Glasgow who were at risk of becoming homeless.

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Ms Kane recalled becoming interested in politics in the 1990s, mainly through her mother.

"My mother was a big follower of Tommy Sheridan, and she encouraged me to become involved," she said.

Ms Kane confirmed she had been a "proud" founding member of the Scottish Socialist Party and added: "I admired Tommy greatly. Most people would do. I was inspired … when Tommy spoke and addressed things, the incredible charisma, and said things I would like to have been able to say."

Honesty and integrity were important qualities, especially in a party like the SSP which "never ran from the truth".

She and Sheridan had worked closely as MSPs and were friends. Then, in the autumn of 2004, a meeting of the party's executive committee was called "out of the blue" following a News of the World article about an unnamed MSP and Cupid's, a swingers' club in Manchester.

"Tommy sat with his head down. He never made eye contact and he said he had visited Cupid's. He was the unnamed MSP. He said he had been there on two occasions. He was very solemn. It was hard to watch. He said he was very regretful. He had been a stupid boy, a silly boy, something along those lines.He said nobody could prove it and he could fight it," said Ms Kane.

She had gone to the meeting hoping that Sheridan, as someone who was always the person she had turned to fix things and have answers, would have been able to say that it was all a huge mistake.

"When that never happened, I was sad and disappointed. I was worried for Gail because I knew more than her and I did not like that. I was scared next, because he could not see what needed to be done and was insisting on challenging and taking this through the courts," Ms Kane said.

"In my head was, 'We are doomed … the party's finished. Everything is going to be trashed for the sake of this.' "

Advocate-depute Alex Prentice, QC, asked if there was any scope for having misheard what was said. "I was closer to him than I am now and there was absolutely, sadly, no scope for that," said Ms Kane.

She told the jury that "it got worse" when another party member, Keith Baldassara, had spoken at the meeting.

"Keith started saying there was more. It was not just a silly boy thing, a reckless moment, but a lot more. Keith said Tommy had also been involved in another activity… there had been an orgy in the Moat House Hotel in Glasgow."

Ms Kane said she remembered Sheridan leaving the meeting.

"I remember very clearly he said, 'I'm going home to see the scan of my baby'. There was a still silence, sadness. People looking at each other... people were openly crying."

Questioned by Sheridan, who is conducting his own defence after sacking his counsel, Ms Kane said her feeling at the end of the defamation case was resentment that he had called her a liar.

"I think you clearly wangled a win. You lied in court and attacked your friends. I do not know if I could have cared less about the verdict, but you called me a liar. I had a mother who went to the grave weeks later with a daughter called a liar, and she adored you," said Ms Kane.

She accepted there might be differences in her evidence from a statement she gave to the police about three years ago.

"Six years, Tommy, I've lost two jobs, two parents and I have a grandwean coming," she said.

Sheridan put it to Ms Kane that, at the meeting, she had heard him strenuously deny the allegations, but she and others had ignored them and produced a distorted minute of what had happened.

"Tommy Sheridan, you are lying about that, and you are actually starting to believe yourself and that is a shame," she said.

The cross-examination is due to resume on Monday.