THE woman who tipped off the Sun about the relationship between a Catholic priest and a former school teacher claimed yesterday she had phoned the newspaper because the priest had been living a ''double-standard life''.
Mrs Barbara Lawson, 51, denied she was a loose-tongued gossip who could not help sticking her ''nasty'' nose into neighbours' business and that she was getting a kick out of what was happening.
Mrs Lawson maintained she would be able to walk from the court with her head held high because she was telling the truth.
She was giving evidence in the second week of a #400,000 defamation by Father Noel Barry, press secretary for Cardinal Thomas Winning, and Miss Annie Clinton, an education adviser with Glasgow City Council.
Both claim a story published in the Sun in September 1996 implied they were having a long-term, secretive sexual relationship. The Sun is defending the action on the basis the story was substantially true and it was never stated Father Barry and Miss Clinton were having an affair.
Mrs Lawson told the court she and her husband had moved into Leander Crescent in Mossend, Lanarkshire, in 1990.
She had seen Miss Clinton and Father Barry arrive in separate cars at the house across the road at about 5.30 to 6pm about every second week and leave at about 9.30 in the morning.
At first, she thought they were probably a couple working away from home but then discovered the identity of the man.
She said: ''I thought it was leading a double-standard life. I did not think it was very proper.''
She was a Sun reader and telephoned the paper. ''I just said it seemed to be a funny situation, the two of them coming and going.''
Mrs Lawson said she had contacted the newspaper a long time before the story broke in 1996, perhaps in 1993, but denied she had been promised or asked for money from the Sun. She said a neighbour had joked that if they gave the story to the Sun they would get a conservatory each, which they could call a ''Sun lounge''.
Mr Paul Cullen, QC, for Father Barry and Miss Clinton, asked: ''Have you got something of a loose tongue? You're a gossipy sort of person who can't help sticking you're nose into neighbours' business. That's what started the whole ball rolling, nothing other than nasty nosiness.''
''No,'' replied Mrs Lawson.
Mr Cullen asked Mrs Lawson what she had against Miss Clinton, a perfectly law-abiding person who kept herself to herself, not a high-up person in the Catholic Church. ''Nothing,'' she replied. ''So why all this then?'' ''Because of the two of them always being there together.''
''You're getting a bit of a kick out of this,'' Mr Cullen claimed: ''Absolutely not,'' said Mrs Lawson.
Mr Cullen asked whether she had supposed Father Barry and Miss Clinton might be having a sexual relationship. She replied: ''It looked like it might have been.''
''You consider now that you did the right thing? ''Yes.'' ''Even after all of this you can walk out of this court with your head held high?'' ''I have done nothing wrong but tell the truth.''
Earlier, in his opening speech to the jury, the Sun's junior counsel, Mr Alistair Clark, said the newspaper's position had always been that the facts contained in the story were true or substantially true.
A number of facts were also now accepted by Father Barry - for example that he had been a frequent visitor to Leander Crescent, he sometimes parked his car round the back of the house, he occasionally cut the grass, and he had sometimes been at the house until the early hours of the morning. Probably the main point still in dispute was whether Father Barry and Miss Clinton spent nights and weekends in the house.
''We say the article simply represents what the neighbours saw,'' said Mr Clark.
''Neighbours in this quiet street saw what they thought was puzzling or a bit odd. We say the newspaper accurately reported neighbours' comments about this odd behaviour.''
Mrs Lawson's husband, Cameron, 52, told the court that just after he had bought his house in about 1990 he had been told by the site agent there was a priest living across the road. The house lay empty for long periods and it appeared as if there was no-one staying on a regular basis.
Once or twice a week, Miss Clinton would turn up in the early part of the evening and Father Barry about half an hour later. He also remembered seeing them leave about 8.30 in the morning in separate cars.
Mr Lawson told the court: ''I saw him on one occasion in Miss Clinton's car.
''Miss Clinton was driving. Father Barry was in the passenger seat wearing an anorak-type jacket. The hood was either up or the collar was up, more or less hiding his face.''
He thought this was ''a bit strange'' and added: ''It looked as though it was deliberate.''
If he had not known the man was a priest he would have thought he and Miss Clinton were a married couple who worked in separate jobs, away from home for lengthy periods.
Mr Lawson said Father Barry was usually dressed casually and he never saw him in priest's clothes.
The hearing continues.
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