Jayne McCormack
BBC News NI politics reporter

Jonathan Bell claimed that a senior figure in Stormont's Executive Office was briefing against him as a "monster who had to be put to sleep" when he was a DUP minister.

He said the individual was David Gordon, who headed the communications for the Executive Office in 2016.

Image source, PA

Mr Bell also alleged a journalist from a multi-national news company was briefing the DUP on how to discredit him by attacking his Christian faith.

It is understood Mr Bell was referring to David Blevins, the Ireland correspondent at Sky News - a spokesperson for Sky News denied that allegation.

Image source, RHI Inquiry

Fed, watered and sitting comfortably? The afternoon session with Jonathan Bell in the witness chair has started...

Well, we knew there was the potential for drama in Mr Bell's appearance at the RHI Inquiry but that session took even us seasoned cash-for-us nerds by surprise.

Time for everyone to catch their breath over a cuppa tea and a ham sandwich before round two begins.

That'll be at 14:00 - see you back here then.

Mr Bell went on holiday in mid-July 2015 and had asked if there there was any urgent business that required to be dealt with before he left.

He claims he's since been accused of heading off and sunning himself.

Image source, Getty Images

But the reality, he says, is that "I'd nothing to deal with - I wasn't given anything to deal with".

He adds that he worked through his emails every night while he was away but there was nothing about the RHI scheme.

Civil servants were working on changes to the RHI scheme in the summer of 2015 after realising that it was running massively over its budget.

The changes were outlined in a submission that was written for Mr Bell on 8 July.

Image source, Getty Images

Mr Bell says he can't remember any discussion with his adviser about the submission when it was being drawn up.

"He never gave me an update or a running commentary on what he was doing - I got no information," says the former minister.

Mr Bell says that other DUP advisers regarded Mr Cairns as "a Walter Mitty character that aspired to be like them".

Image source, RHI Inquiry

He claims that his adviser was intimidated by the others and that he frequently deferred to them.

He describes one occasion when he claims that Mr Cairns said to him: "I'm weak and I'm a coward."

Texts from the day after the clear-the-air meeting in June 2015 shows that Mr Cairns had "disappointment and annoyance" that Mr Bell's "temper" was not addressed.

"I felt yesterday everything was directed against me," wrote Mr Cairns.

Image source, PA

Mr Johnston replied that that was an "unfair characterisation of the meeting" and said it was up to the adviser to raise it.

Mr Cairns texted in response that he felt that "Jonathan Bell has gotten away with it again".

Mr Bell reiterates his point that no complaints were ever made against him.

Mr Bell that the evidence his former adviser has given to the inquiry "disturbs me greatly" given that their families had such a good relationship.

"I don't recognise at all what has been subsequently been said," he continues, adding that no complaint has ever been made against him.

Image source, RHI Inquiry

Mr Bell says a newspaper offered to print a headline reading "Bully Boy Bell" if his accusers could find one person to say that he'd bullied them.

"I fear I have been the victim of a massive smear campaign" he says.

Mr Bell says that his adviser's behaviour changed "significantly and dramatically" after the clear-the-air meeting and the two subsequently "worked together far more constructively".

But in his evidence to the inquiry, Mr Cairns claims he wasn't happy with the outcome of the meeting and he felt concerns he had raised about Mr Bell was being ignored.

Image source, Getty Images

That doesn't fit with Mr Bell's view: "For several weeks and months after that we regularly had coffee together, we socialised together... enjoyed ourselves.

Their families had gone out for meals and "built sandcastles with his children on beaches in Portstewart", he says.

Mr Bell says he had a meeting with the then first minister Peter Robinson and his adviser Mr Johnston to discuss the situation with Mr Cairns.

The witness says that when he learned about the events at the breakfast meeting Mr Robinson described it as "absolutely outrageous behaviour for a special adviser".

Image source, RHI Inquiry

Mr Cairns was not at work for two weeks and Mr Bell says he and his officials were able to get a lot of work moved forward during that period.

There was a clear-the-air meeting at the end of June 2015 between Mr Bell, his adviser and Mr Johnston and Mr Cairns gave "a full and unequivocal apology for his behaviour", claims the former minister.

"He told me he needed the job for his family," says Mr Bell, and it was on that basis that he accepted him back into the job.

Returning to the London breakfast row, Mr Cairns has told the inquiry that Mr Bell said afterwards that he was firing him from his position as adviser.

But Mr Bell says he was dismissing the adviser "for that day".

The witness tells the inquiry that he decided to do that was because he felt he had been disrespected by the adviser.

He adds that later in the day he got a call from senior DUP adviser Timothy Johnston to say that advisers were appointed by the party officers.

Text messages that his adviser sent to the DUP leader Arlene Foster and senior party adviser Timothy Johnston reveal that he "would fit his story to whatever the party narrative was to be", claims Mr Bell.

He says that he regards Mr Cairns's account of the breakfast row as "a fitting of me up".

Image source, RHI Inquiry

Mr Bell also says that David Gordon, who headed the communications for the Executive Office in 2016, briefed that he was "a monster that had to be put to sleep".

He says it appears that a journalist - "a Mr Blevins, if I believe it is the Sky Ireland correspondent" - was advising the DUP on "how to discredit me and destroy the information I'd given" by attacking his Christian faith.

"I am one boy," he says, and he cannot operate against such attacks.

Mr Bell reached to grab his adviser's wagging finger and "threatened in an aggressive tone to break it" at the breakfast meeting, according to the evidence Mr Cairns has given to the inquiry.

That allegation is "untrue, completely without foundation and has no basis whatsoever in fact", says the former DETI minister.

Image source, Getty Images

"I have never tried to break anybody's finger and never would."

Claims that he threw a punch are also false, he says - that's something "I have never ever done."

"Difficulties came" at a breakfast meeting the morning after the Indian restaurant incident when Mr Cairns said that DUP advisers would have an input in Mr Bell's ministerial decisions, claims the witness.

Image source, Getty Images

He explains: "Timothy Cairns was openly, in front of my permanent secretary, in front of some of my senior management team, saying that: 'No, the minister won't make that decision - [advisers] will make that decision.'"

Mr Bell took that as a challenge to "my ability to function as a minister".

On 9 and 10 June 2015, Mr Bell, his adviser and the DETI permanent secretary went to London for a meeting the then energy secretary Amber Rudd.

On the first night, Mr Bell and Mr Cairns had dinner in an Indian restaurant - the adviser claims the RHI scheme was discussed.

In his evidence to the inquiry, Mr Cairns says he'd urged Mr Bell to take advice from his successor at DETI Arlene Foster and her adviser Dr Andrew Crawford, given that they had experience of the scheme.

Image source, Getty Images

But Mr Bell has no memory of the scheme being discussed, adding that the purpose of the London trip was about a matter unrelated to it.

He claims there was a discussion about the extent of his ministerial authority and that point he made was that he was the minister so decisions were for him to make.

The witness says that in previous meetings together with other people, Mr Cairns had interrupted him and made a "deliberate attempt to limit my powers".

"He felt responsible to the other senior [DUP advisers] - more responsible to them than to his minister."

A civil service code of practice states that ministerial advisers are to be appointed by ministers.

Ministers "must ensure that they consider a number of candidates", it states, and "each stage of the recruitment must be documented".

Image source, RHI Inquiry

Mr Bell says he wasn't told by the DUP or his ministerial office that the code existed, adding that the proper process for the appointment of Mr Cairns wasn't followed.

"It's clear... that that was a contravention with the legal position but I thought it was lawful at the time," he adds.

Sir Patrick says there is a "very real concern" that the appointment process for advisers was being "camouflaged".

Mr Scoffield (below) quotes from a letter Mr Bell sent to Dr McCormick, the DETI permanent secretary, confirming Mr Cairns's appointment

"I have concluded that Timothy Cairns is by far the most qualified candidate available," wrote Mr Bell and he went on to describe Mr Cairns as "highly capable".

Image source, RHI Inquiry

The inquiry barrister asks how that tallies with the evidence Mr Bell has given to the inquiry.

The witness says he was given a prewritten letter and was asked to sign it - he claims it was composed and given to him by his private office and he didn't write it.

Mr Bell claims that his ministerial adviser Tim Cairns was appointed by the DUP, not by himself.

He says there "wasn't a choice" and he had to take Mr Cairns because other advisers had already been allocated to other DUP ministers.

Image source, Getty Images

"There were many other people that would've been chosen had it been left to me to do it," he says.

"The DUP had taken an overarching as a party that all special advisers would be appointed by the part."

Asked if he was happy when he was given Mr Cairns as his adviser, Mr Bell says he was "content".

There is no written record of what happened at the 8 June meeting between senior DETI managers and Mr Bell on 8 June.

But the department's deputy permanent secretary Chris Stewart sent a civil service colleague an email about it that afternoon, writing that the minister "asked to be kept informed" about three "remedial" actions for the RHI scheme.

Image source, Getty Images

Mr Bell says that account is "not a statement of what occurred" - his belief is that the discussion about the RHI scheme was shut down by his ministerial adviser.

He is challenged by Sir Patrick: "Why would the deputy permanent secretary make up an email like that if what you have told us today is true?"

The witness responds: "I simply, chairman, do not know... I have no recollection whatsoever of being given these three issues."

Mr Bell claims he was getting briefings about "many other things of less immediacy... and budgetary pressure" than the RHI scheme but he received nothing about the energy initiative.

Senior managers at DETI were not "able to give me any precision" about the spending figures for the RHI scheme.

Image source, Getty Images

But inquiry panellist Dr Keith MacLean points out that a briefing document the minister was given on his first day in office in May 2015 outlined that it was projected to cost £22m that year.

Mr Bell insists that "on several occasions" subsequent to that civil servants were "not able to give me definitive detail".

"They told me it was impossible to tell you."