Verbal fireworks at NZer's Da Vinci Code case

LONDON - Some heated verbal exchanges erupted yesterday in the closing stages of "The Da Vinci Code" copyright court case, in which two historians accuse author Dan Brown of lifting their research wholesale in his bestseller.

Richard Leigh took to the witness box after more than three days of painstaking cross examination of co-claimant New Zealander Michael Baigent, enlivening proceedings and saying all he had wanted was proper acknowledgement from Brown in his novel.

Leigh could hardly have been more different than the soft-spoken, professorial Baigent. In delivery he was clear and aggressive, and instead of dark, sober suits he appeared in court this week in a brown leather jacket and dark sunglasses.

Leigh and Baigent are co-authors of the 1982 historical work "The Holy Blood, and the Holy Grail", and say Brown copied their central themes in his religious thriller.

They are suing Brown's British publisher Random House in a case that has attracted huge media attention, both because of Brown's superstar status among writers and the potential precedent the case could set should the historians succeed.

Brown, 41, has been in court for most of the hearings and watched on Friday when Leigh was in the witness box. Brown is expected to give evidence on Monday.

"If Mr Brown had acknowledged Holy Blood, Holy Grail at the opening of his book ... I question whether in fact we would be here," Leigh told a packed courtroom.

After Leigh's cross-examination ended surprisingly quickly, Judge Peter Smith closed the second week of the case by pointing out that a character in The Da Vinci Code actually refers to the 1982 book.

The name of the character, Sir Leigh Teabing, is in fact an anagram of the names of the two claimants.

"In the first place it damns us with faint praise," said Leigh, adding he found Teabing's reference to the book "patronising".

Smith countered that an explanation for this may be that Teabing was a patronising character in the book.

More importantly, said Leigh, was the fact that his and his co-authors' names did not appear. A third author of Holy Blood, Henry Lincoln, is not taking part in the action.

When it was suggested sales of Holy Blood had increased sharply as a result of publicity surrounding the court case and the huge interest generated by Brown's novel, Leigh said: "It might also make me feel churlish for being here."

Once again much of the discussion centred round ancient history and conjecture surrounding the blood-line of Jesus, the real meaning of the elusive Holy Grail, the role of the mysterious Priory of Sion and the Knights Templar.

The themes are common to both works, although Random House's lawyer, John Baldwin, has sought to stress distinctions between the books, the fact Brown drew on several sources not one, and that the historians' work itself was not original.

Baldwin's tendency to pause before naming witnesses during cross-examination prompted Leigh to interject: "Why do you keep forgetting my name?"

When challenged by Baldwin over a point in his witness statement, he countered angrily: "You are thinking I deliberately lied?"

Last August, Brown won a court ruling against another writer, Lewis Perdue, who alleged The Da Vinci Code copied elements of two of his novels, "Daughter of God" and "The Da Vinci Legacy".

- REUTERS