recall Person 5 having to leave the Commanders' RV to go and investigate an engagement. His evidence in this respect was clear:
Now, are you quite sure that there was no engagements that occurred during the patrol commanders' RV?---I'm quite sure.
Did any patrol commander have to leave the RV to investigate an engagement?---Not that I recall. Out – sorry. If I may, I do – I don't recall Person 6 being at the team commanders' RV, and that may be a reason why Person 6 wasn't there. I can't recall.
All right. You certainly don't recall Person 5 having to leave the RV to go and investigate an engagement?---No. I don't recall. No.
850 Person 81 did not recall hearing any engagement whilst he was within the compound and he did not recall receiving any reports of any engagements taking place whilst he was within the compound. He agreed under cross-examination that he did not recall there being any engagement just outside the walls of the compound during the Commanders' RV. He said he did not recall any of the patrol commanders leaving the Commanders' RV to investigate "any engagement". Person 81's best recollection was of being told of EKIAs back at the VDOP or at some later point in time.
851 I consider that if there had been engagements during the Commanders' RV that would be a matter a witness would be likely to recall. In fact, Person 29's account is quite inconsistent with the proposition.
852 The account of the engagement provided by the applicant to the Court differs from earlier accounts given by the applicant and Person 5. It is difficult to describe two armed insurgents running in an arc around a compound as squirters.
853 I have referred to Person 5's evidence of his interaction with the applicant when the applicant told him that he, together with Person 4, had engaged two squirters to the north or who:
… ran away to the northwest. Or northeast by your cardinal direction.
854 If that is correct and that is what the applicant said, then the applicant's account now is different from what it was immediately after the engagements. If it is correct, then it is inconsistent with Person 5's statement of complaint on or about 15 June 2018. I refer to the closed Court reasons (at [68]–[69]).
855 The respondents submit that the description of the men as squirters was connected with an earlier false assertion that the tunnel had a second exit outside the compound walls. Person 5 assumed that the tunnel had a second exit and he continued to make that assumption until he
