car in specie in the liquidation, and to attend and deal with the business of the final meeting of the company. To the best of his recollection, it was a totally straightforward liquidation, and the subject of a conspiracy of dark forces was not raised at either of their meetings. General Watson 140. General Watson joined the Conservative Party Treasurer’s Department in 1989, and was its director between 1992 and 1994. He left the Department in about 1996. The deputy director of the Department from 1992 was the late Mr Randle Cooke. Bane was one of the donors for whom Mr Cooke had responsibility. 141. General Watson produced a “Constituent Profile” for Bane, which lists the donations he made to central funds between May 1988 and January 2004. The total amount of these donations is £88,660, and the most substantial gifts were made in the early 1990s. The largest gift was of £20,000 in 1992. There was also a gift of £13,000 in 1991, and two gifts of £10,000 in 1992 and 1993. None of the other gifts exceeded £5,000; and after 1995 none of them exceeded £1,000, with the exception of a gift of £3,000 in June 2001 to the campaign fund set up for the general election in that year. General Watson confirmed that the profile only contains details of Bane’s donations to central funds, and therefore does not mention his other gifts to the Putney and Ealing Conservative Party Associations. 142. General Watson’s evidence was that, as a matter of principle, the Treasurer’s Department had to be very careful about accepting donations, and if Mr Cooke had had any doubts about Bane’s capacity to deal with his affairs and make donations he would have made them known to him as director, and the Department would then have declined to accept the donations. General Watson said that he did not remember Mr Cooke having ever raised any doubts on this subject. He was, however, constrained to admit in cross-examination that some of Bane’s letters which accompanied his donations and which happen to survive (the Department’s own file is apparently no longer extant) were on the face of it incoherent and bizarre, and he was unable to explain whether any investigation had in fact taken place. General Watson himself barely knew Bane personally, having met him only once at a reception when his behaviour was apparently normal. Archpriest Kostic 143. Archpriest Kostic is a priest of the Serbian Orthodox Church, and is based at the church of that denomination in Lancaster Road, London W11. He first met Bane in the early 1980s, through his predecessor Father Miloje Nikolic, who was retired and living in Sussex, and Bane’s family priest in Switzerland, Father Drasko Toderovic. He spent time with Bane in their company, and got to know him very well. Their friendship was particularly close between 1985 and 1990, and they continued to see each other fairly regularly until 1999 when contact between them virtually came to an end for reasons which Archpriest Kostic was unable to explain. 144. In the early years of their friendship, Bane would often stay with Archpriest Kostic at his home, first in Wembley and then at his present home in West London. At this time Bane did not appear to have many possessions, and would leave a few bags with him. He was an extremely keen sportsman, and always had a set of golf clubs and