IT IS POSSIBLE that someone on the board of the National Sports Council (NSC) leaked a story to the WEEKEND NATION about him being sent on accumulated leave.

And it was significant, said Erskine King, that he got his letter sending him on accumulated leave the same day the story hit the papers.

King was answering cross-examination questions when his suit against the Sports Council began in the No. 7 Supreme Court yesterday.

"Why is it significant that the letter was handed to you on the same day?" asked NSC attorney John Forde.

"It was significant in as much as the board apparently took the decision on the Wednesday, which was communicated to me verbally by the chairman on Wednesday night and then on the Friday morning it was in the paper and I got the letter the Friday afternoon," he said.

"Is it your contention that the respondant leaked or disseminated the information to the Press?" asked Forde.

"In as much as the article referred to a conversation with the chairman and a well-placed source, I concluded that is where it came from – some member of the board," King said.

And even though the story said the chairman declined comment, he said he drew on his experience as a former journalist when "there were times when information came from a source, that you also protect that source by referring to others close to that entity".

"Would you agree or disagree that it was as a result of you speaking to the Press that the matter was ventilated?" asked Forde,

"I disagree strongly, vehemently," King replied.

The sports director further told the court he thought it was unusual, in that it had never happened before, when he was asked to leave the board meeting.

However, he admitted it would not be unusual if the board was about to discuss matters relating to him.

He further told the court the 215 days' accumulated leave did not represent annual holiday but was an "accumulation of annual holiday".

"As I said to the chairman, the matter could have been discussed with me. I was not the messenger at the Sports Council but the chief executive officer," King told the court.

He admitted his decision to defer holidays "because of ministerial changes" might have been recorded on "one or two occasions in the board minutes" and would have been discussed with either the board's chairman or permanent secretary.

The director later disagreed with suggestions that the board's actions were not calculated to embarrass or humiliate him.