was transferred to Mr David White, a senior partner in the firm. Mr Trower had by now retired as senior partner, although he remained as a consultant. His successor as senior partner was Mr Whittaker Jones. 62. Mr White had not met Bane before, and they had an introductory meeting over breakfast at Simpsons where they discussed French impressionist art. Bane impressed Mr White on this occasion as a “nice” man in both senses of that word, a pleasant, kindly and stimulating companion on the one hand, and also a precise, intelligent man who would spot and deprecate insincerity on the other hand. According to Mr White’s witness statement, he had been told by Mr Trower that Bane “was a learned, wealthy Yugoslav chemist who could at times be incoherent, but not so as to cause a problem”. Mr White himself recalls that “incoherence” only manifesting itself once to him, when during a telephone conversation there was suddenly a brief interlude while Bane rambled about spiritual matters involving the Virgin Mary before returning to the business in hand. Mr White stresses that Bane’s instructions to him were always clear and perfectly rational. Nevertheless, he was evidently sufficiently concerned to ask Mr Trower’s son Christopher, who was then an articled clerk with the firm, to carry out some research for him on the law on capacity. This exercise resulted in a note from Christopher Trower dated 30 November 1989, which dealt with both the capacity needed to purchase a house and the capacity needed to retain solicitors. In the light of that research, Mr White says he had no reason to doubt, then or subsequently, that Bane was fully aware of the nature and quality of his actions, and fully competent to give instructions. He also says he has no doubt that Bane’s references to Mr Trower as “St Anthony” were made “in humour, affection and respect”. 63. At the end of 1989 Bane was 64 years old and Zoran was 32. He had a house in London, for the first time since his separation from Mirjana in 1984, and the affairs of his company, Transtrade UK Ltd, had finally been wound up. He had made the 1989 Will, and was not to make any further testamentary dispositions. It is unnecessary for me to trace the remainder of his life in chronological order, although there are a number of episodes to which I will return when describing the evidence of the witnesses and considering, in more detail than I have so far, Bane’s relationships with Zoran and with the Conservative Party. For now, it is enough to record that on 14 December 1992 Bane’s mother died, and he himself died on 24 October 2005. Bane’s Diary of Vital Events 64. One important document to which I have not yet referred is a typed list, or diary, of events in chronological order covering the years from 1984 to 1997 inclusive, which was then extended to cover the next four years up to 2000. This document was clearly typed by Bane himself – the type face which he used is very distinctive – and equally clearly it was created retrospectively: the first page is headed “The Vital (Major) Events During 1984-1997”. There then follow some 29 pages of singlespaced A4 paper, with a left hand column showing dates and opposite them diarystyle entries. These entries, or at least the majority of them, were probably derived from contemporary diaries which Bane kept, but which unfortunately no longer survive. The chronology almost always appears to be accurate, and on more than one occasion witnesses were prepared to accept that the date shown in the document for an event was more likely to be correct if it conflicted with their own unaided recollection of when it occurred. Nevertheless, the very fact that the document was