The Plebgate judge thought PC Rowland was a pleb

In paragraph 135 of his judgment in the Andrew Mitchell ‘Plebgate’ case, Mr Justice Mitting says that P.C. Rowland, the police officer whom Mr Mitchell was suing for libel, is ‘not the sort of man who would have the wit, imagination or inclination to invent on the spur of the moment an account of what a senior politician had said to him in a temper’.

In paragraph 174, however, the judge says that Mr Rowland did give a false account of how members of the public reacted to the incident. He goes on: ‘Embellishment of a true account by a police officer on the defensive is, of course, not acceptable, but it is understandable if done for that purpose.’

So he doesn’t make things up on the spur of the moment, but does later, and that is sort of all right: a striking doctrine, especially from a judge, of what is permissible in police evidence.