[rahl]

more extracts:

We found Mr Evra to be an impressive witness. He gave his evidence to us in a calm, composed and clear manner.

…

Mr Suarez speaks little English. There were occasions during the hearing when he clearly understood a question in English because he gave a response in a few words of English or by a nod of the head. But these were few and far between.

Mr Suarez was present for the whole of the hearing. It was inevitably a stressful time for Mr Suarez facing, as he was, a serious charge in unfamiliar surroundings. He sat with his own interpreter, who translated the proceedings for him throughout. When he gave evidence, he did so through an independent interpreter. He gave evidence in a respectful manner. We are conscious of the difficulties for Mr Suarez in giving evidence in the circumstances which we have described.

However, Mr Suarez was not as impressive a witness as Mr Evra. His answers were not always clear or directly addressed to the question. We give one example in paragraph 246 below. Whether this was due to language difficulties or evasiveness was not entirely clear and so, whenever we could, we gave Mr Suarez the benefit of the doubt. We were certainly more concerned by the substance of his evidence (as explained below) than by the manner in which he gave it.

…

In his interview with the FA on 2 November, Mr Suarez said that the term "negro" was used in an affectionate or friendly way. He was asked whether he would call a black stranger "negro", or whether you needed to have a relationship with them before you could use that term. He replied "When you're having a normal conversation in a friendly way, you can call him black". He was then asked if he would use the word "negro" straightaway when speaking to an English black person. He said "No, because I wouldn't know how to say it in a friendly or affectionate way, how to call him black in English. Because maybe I tell them black in English, maybe they get upset, because I don't know how to call them black in a friendly way in English."

On 15 November, Professor Wade and Dr Scorey provided their written experts' report, which was served on Mr Suarez with the Charge letter on 16 November. We have summarised the contents of their report in Section V above. The experts had read the transcript of the interview with Mr Suarez and commented on his account. They said in their report that it was possible that Mr Suarez's use of the term was intended as an attempt at conciliation and/or to establish rapport. In his interview prior to the report being prepared, Mr Suarez had not used the word "conciliation" in connection with his use of the word "negro".

Mr Suarez signed his witness statement on 6 December, which was after he had received the experts’ report. In paragraph 13 of his witness statement, Mr Suarez said this: "I explain in paragraph 34 below [this should read 35] that I did use the word "negro" by reference to Mr Evra during the game on 15th October 2011. I was using the word in the way that I normally would to refer to dark-skinned people as "negro" (black). Where I grew up, the word negro is used (and has been used throughout my life by me) as a friendly form of address to people seen as black or brown-skinned (or even just black-haired). To use some examples of how this word is used: I was darker when I was younger and had very dark hair and because of this my wife calls me negro, in an affectionate way, and so do many of my friends. Similarly, I would refer to Glen Johnson as "negro" in the same way that I might refer to Dirk Kuyt as "Blondie" (because he has blond hair) or Andy Carroll as "Grandote" (Big Man - because he is very tall). Where I come from it is normal to refer to people in this way by reference to what they look like. There is no aggression in referring to somebody in this way and there is certainly no racial connotation. For the word "Negro" to be used in an offensive way it would have to be used with another word such as "negro de mierda" (shitty black). There is no word that means "Nigger" in Spanish and I was not aware of this word until the allegations made by Mr Evra."

…

Whilst Mr Evra is partly to blame for starting the confrontation at that moment, Mr Suarez's attitude and actions were the very antithesis of the conciliation and friendliness that he would have us believe.

…

We accepted Mr Evra's account of these exchanges. The principal reasons for doing so were the following. First, Mr Evra was a credible witness whose evidence was not seriously undermined in any material respect, as explained above. Secondly, we found Mr Suarez, in contrast, to be an unreliable witness on critical parts of his evidence. His evidence was inconsistent with contemporaneous evidence in the form of video footage, especially with regard to his claims of pinching as an attempt to defuse the situation, and using the word "negro" in a conciliatory and friendly way. He changed his account over time in a number of respects. This all combined to cast grave doubt on the reliability of the remainder of his evidence on the main factual disputes.