43.
The essential issue in this case requires the resolution of this conflict of accounts
between the Claimant Rabbi Meisels and the First Defendant Mr. Lichtman. The
Claimant seeks to support his account of the meeting with the First Defendant by
calling his personal assistant, driver and property manager Mr. Hochauser. Mr.
Hochauser claims to have been present throughout the whole of the meeting and heard
the full conversation with Mr. Fisher. The First Defendant says that Mr. Hochauser
only arrived at the end of the meeting and could not have heard the full discussion
leading to the agreement.
44.
I accept the Defendant’s submission that I should be cautious about relying on Mr.
Hochauser’s evidence. There is a real risk that he is giving evidence tailored to
support that of the Claimant in the light of a number of inconsistencies in his account
and his professed strong personal loyalty to the Claimant who he regards as a father
figure. The inconsistencies include:i)
The Claimant and the First Defendant are agreed that the call to Mr. Fisher
was made on a mobile phone. Mr. Hochauser was not present in court when
the Claimant gave this evidence. When he gave evidence he said the call was
made on the office phone.
ii)
Mr. Hochauser seemed to remember greater details of the conversation with
Mr. Fisher than did the Claimant. If he was present in the room at the time of
the conversation, he was not a participant in the discussion, and his grasp of
what Mr. Fisher saying at the other end of a phone would have been limited,
even if the phone was on speaker mode which is a disputed issue.
iii)
Mr. Hochauser has a third version of the sequence of the events leading to the
transaction. I would not expect him to remember this degree of detail and the
differences with the Claimant’s version are surprising.
45.
I can accept Mr Hochauser’s evidence that this meeting took place in the morning of
the 23rd December as that accords with Mr. Weiss’s recollection of when the first
transfer was made following the First Defendant’s return to the Trust’s office. Whilst
I can broadly accept the evidence of the Second and Third Defendants, that was not
substantially challenged, they can give no direct assistance on the nature of the
arrangements made between the two principal parties. I further accept the evidence of
Mr. Fisher that will be considered separately below. He was a forceful and emphatic
witness.
46.
Clearly the Trust was in the habit of making and receiving loans and also making and
receiving gifts. It is the First Defendant who sought out and persuaded donors to give
or lend, and he ultimately decided the fate of the monies in the UK Charity, where
they were to be sent and for what purpose. In my judgment the central question is
with what intentions were the two sums transferred to YLJT that day?
The subsequent events
47.
Before resolving the conflict in the evidence the subsequent history can be recounted.
Later in the day, following the meeting the Claimant was driven to the airport to catch
a plane to Jerusalem leaving at 10.00pm and arriving the following morning Friday
24th December. There were contested issues as to when the ticket for this journey was