respects. The respondents submit that the applicant has not pointed to any rational reason why Person 18, who the applicant accepts was covering Person 35 at the top of the tunnel, would add to the rumour by throwing in "the false story in respect of the tunnel".
474 Person 18 admitted that he did not consider that the applicant deserved the Victoria Cross and that he had said that to other people, but he denied that he had expressed that view because he was upset that he had not received a medal. It was not expressly put to Person 18 that he made up the story about seeing the person in white with two or three soldiers in the tunnel courtyard because he considered that the applicant did not deserve the Victoria Cross and because he was upset that he himself had not been awarded a medal.
475 Person 18 said that he had heard rumours about a killing at W108, but how that circumstance might have led him to invent a memory of a man in white with flexi cuffs on and standing in a small group of soldiers was never made clear by the applicant.
476 I have referred to the evidence of five witnesses, Persons 40, 41, 42, 43 and 18, concerning an Afghan man or Afghan men coming out of the tunnel while they were there or being near or adjacent to the tunnel when they arrived in the courtyard.
477 In their closing written submissions, the respondents referred to the nature of the challenges made to the evidence of those witnesses and submit that the weaknesses of those challenges when properly considered leads to the conclusion that the applicant is unable to offer any plausible explanation as to why the witnesses should not be believed.
478 By reference to the applicant's cross-examination of Persons 40 and 42, the respondents submit that the applicant effectively concedes that they were honest witnesses. As I have said, I do not accept that there was no challenge in cross-examination to the honesty of Person 42. The respondents submit that there is no rational explanation for how those witnesses could honestly have given the evidence they did which aligned with each other and other witnesses called by the respondents, if it was untrue.
479 Furthermore, the lack of a rational explanation in relation to those witnesses undermines the submission that the evidence of Persons 41, 43 and 18 was invented. The respondents submit that there was no explanation for how the evidence of each of those men could have been so consistent if it was fabricated, both with the honest evidence of Persons 40 and 42 and with the evidence of the other allegedly dishonest witnesses. The respondents submit that the
