You would not find the answer to either question in The Da Vinci Code (DVC), the High Court was told yesterday. And that is because, according to the defence case, Dan Brown’s hugely successful thriller is not the rip-off from a work of religious speculation that it is alleged to be.

Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, co-authors of The Holy Blood and The Holy Grail (HBHG), a bestseller when published in 1982, are suing Brown’s publishers for breach of copyright. They claim that the novel stole much of its plot from their work, which explores the theory that Christ married and had children, and that the Roman Catholic Church has been trying to hush it up ever since.

It was not a good day for the claimants yesterday, when the hearing resumed after a six-day adjournment to allow Mr Justice Peter Smith to read both books carefully. Under withering cross-examination from John Baldwin, QC, representing Random House, the publishers, Baigent admitted that some of the evidence in his 80-page witness statement to the court was false.

The claimants allege that Brown lifted at least 15 ideas from their book. To support their case, they presented a number of book reviews and a reader’s letter to The Times purporting to show the similarities in the two works. In his written witness statement, Baigent had alleged that Brown had “used a thriller plot to disseminate the central theme of HBHG”. Mr Baldwin showed that HBHG’s theories about Godfrey de Bouillon, the Emperor Constantine and a number of other points did not appear in The Da Vinci Code. “I think I could have phrased that paragraph more felicitously,” Baigent said.

“You could have told the truth, for instance,” Mr Baldwin shot back. Pressed further on whether reviewers shared his view that the plot of DVC was based on HBHG, Baigent said: “I should have said ‘appeared to share’.” He added: “I cannot establish beyond a shadow of doubt that they share every single one of the 15 points.”

Reviewers, Mr Baldwin said, had highlighted an important theme of HBHG as being that Christ did not die on the Cross and that He faked His own Crucifixion. That, along with many other points, were not in DVC.

“They are not, that is true,” Baigent conceded.

Mr Baldwin asked Baigent why he had signed a statement containing paragraphs that were false. “I believed it to be true, but I am prepared to state now that I was not right.” Even the judge weighed in: “You can’t have believed this witness statement when you drew it up. You are now drawing completely the opposite conclusion.”

Baigent replied: “I didn’t read them [the reviews] with the correct assiduity that I should have done.”

The hearing continues.

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