'Sheridan stayed at affair claim woman's house', court is told

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Tommy Sheridan visited the home of a woman who claims to have had an affair with him, a court was told today.

Sheridan was alleged to have visited Katrine Trolle's house in Dundee in autumn 2004, his perjury trial at the High Court in Glasgow was told.

Ms Trolle has told the trial she had sex with Sheridan on several occasions between 2000 and 2004, including at her own home in Dundee and at his house in Glasgow.

Ralph Barnett, a journalist with the Dundee Courier and Advertiser and the Dundee Evening Telegraph, said he was at the house one evening and saw Sheridan arrive.

Sheridan and his wife Gail, both 46, are accused of lying under oath during his successful defamation action against the News of the World in 2006.

Sheridan denies lying to the court during the trial, which followed the newspaper's claims that he was an adulterer who visited swingers' clubs.

He won £200,000 in damages after the newspapers printed the allegations about his private life.

During the action, Sheridan said he had not had a sexual relationship with Ms Trolle and he had never stayed at her home at Kingennie Court in Dundee.

But today Mr Barnett told the trial he had seen Sheridan arrive at the house and go upstairs with Ms Trolle when he was visiting his girlfriend Ruth Adamson.

He said he had checked his diaries and believed the most likely date for the visit was October 11 2004.

He said: "At some point in the evening, Katrine told us she was going to meet Mr Sheridan.

"She returned in her car with Mr Sheridan. We were aware of the car coming up the drive and we were aware of the door opening.

"Katrine and Mr Sheridan no more than poked their heads around the door. They went upstairs. They didn't come into the living room where we were."

Mr Barnett said he did not see Mr Sheridan again that night or the following morning.

He added that although there were three bedrooms in the house, the spare bedroom was "chaos", saying "it was just a box room, a storage room. There was never a bed set up there to my knowledge".

The indictment against the Sheridans contains three charges in total, two of which are broken down into subsections.

It is alleged he made false statements as a witness in the defamation action of July 21 2006.

He also denies a charge of attempting to persuade a witness to commit perjury shortly before the 23-day trial got under way.

Gail Sheridan denies making false statements on July 31 2006, after being sworn in as a witness in the civil jury trial.