Our sage, veteran trial judge had the following additional guidelines about the art of judging credibility:
“The appearance and demeanour of the witness and the impression made as to the witness’ honesty and truthfulness is also only one of the factors to consider in determining the witness’ credibility. The finding of credibility should not depend solely on which witness made the better appearance of honesty and sincerity in the witness stand. If credibility was decided on that basis alone it would lead to a purely arbitrary finding, and justice would depend to a large extent on how and who made the best impression in the witness stand.
Where there are conflicting and contradictory accounts, the judge should consider what facts are beyond dispute or indisputable, add to those facts such other facts as seen very likely to be true, and then examine which of the conflicting accounts best accords with those facts. The conflicting testimony of a witness may be judged to be unreliable if his evidence is, in any serious respect, inconsistent with the undisputed or indisputable and otherwise found facts. When the judge has done his best to separate the true from the false by these more or less objective tests, the judge should consider which story is more probable. The test of the truth of the story of a witness in cases of serious conflict must be its harmony with the preponderance of probabilities which a practical and informed person would readily recognize as reasonable in the light of the existing circumstances and conditions. The judge endeavours to determine, if possible, which of the conflicting stories is more consistent with the probabilities and the surrounding circumstances and conditions when examined in the background of the evidence as a whole. ”