At the end of four gruelling hours on the stand, in a rare and unusual spectacle, Mayor Rob Ford denied repeatedly lying under oath to save his political skin.

Lawyer Clayton Ruby, his voice rising Wednesday in a cavernous University Ave. courtroom, called Toronto’s mayor a chronic liar clinging to an odd but legally advantageous interpretation of conflict of interest.

“To have a conflict of interest,” the mayor told court in a by-then-familiar refrain, “you have to have two parties involved and the city has to benefit, and a member of council has to benefit.”

Ford suggested that, contrary to what is spelled out in the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, and a council handbook that he was handed four times but said he has never seen, there can be no conflict if the member of council alone stood to benefit financially from a council vote.

“I’m suggesting to you that you never believed that,” Ruby fired back, citing the February council vote where Ford passionately urged councillors to quash a previous order that he repay $3,150 in donations to his private football charity, and then voted with them to let himself off the hook.

Ruby portrayed the vote as another instance of rule-breaking by an “angry and defiant” politician, as revealed by a string of integrity commissioner findings, who can’t claim now to have made an honest mistake.

“I suggest to you that you (in February were) just fed up with the repeated condemnation of your actions by another integrity commissioner, and you thought you could stonewall it and convince council, as a newly elected, popular mayor, to reverse it — and that is why you spoke.”

“That’s not true,” snapped back an exhausted-looking Ford. “Not true!”

Earlier, Ford’s lawyer, Alan Lenczner, told Justice Charles Hackland that Ford cannot be guilty of conflict of interest because the Act applies only to votes involving city business, not a council code of conduct matter involving a member’s behaviour.

“This is just my personal issue,” Ford said of the council vote.

In addition, Lenczner argued, council did not have the legislative authority to order Ford to repay donations he had solicited from lobbyists, their clients and racetrack operator Woodbine Entertainment while they lobbied him on city business.

City integrity commissioner Janet Leiper had recommended sanctioning Ford about repaying the money in late 2010, and it was his refusal to show proof he had actually returned the cash that brought the issue back to council in February.

Ford told court he spoke at that meeting to “clear the air” and educate councillors about his foundation, which provides up to $10,000 to high schools to help them start football programs.

“The kids — there are so many stories about the kids that come out of these football foundations it would bring tears to your eyes ... it saves kids’ lives,” testified Ford, the long-time coach of Etobicoke’s Don Bosco Eagles.

“To ask me to pay that out of my own pocket, there’s no sense to this. The money’s gone,” spent on equipment, he said. He added that he exchanges business cards with almost everyone he meets and later sends requests for donations to those people.

The hearing, which continues Thursday without Ford, is the result of a lawsuit launched by Toronto resident Paul Magder in March. Ruby, who took on the case pro bono, called Ford a rule-breaking “bully” doing “bad, bad things.”

In appearances on talk radio and CP24 leading up to Wednesday’s testimony, Ford portrayed the accusation as a purely political attempt by left-wingers to oust him through the courts because they can’t at the ballot box.

For the right-wing populist who stormed into office almost two years ago in a landslide fuelled by suburban discontent, and whose term has been relentlessly turbulent, the stakes could not be higher.

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If Hackland rules that Ford broke the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act, he must, by law, order him removed from office — unless the judge decides the breach was “inadvertent,” or made through an “error of judgment,” or if the sum involved was inconsequential.

Although Ford has said that he would simply run again and come back stronger, a guilty finding would give Hackland the option of banning him from seeking re-election for up to seven years.

Ruby showed video of a May 2010 council meeting in which Ford declared a conflict of interest and left the chamber because council was about to discuss another, unrelated, integrity commissioner finding against him.

“On that day you understood the simple principle that if the debate was about Rob Ford you can’t take part in the debate,” Ruby told the mayor.

But Ford insisted he did so only because the city solicitor suggested he had a conflict, as she and other city officials had warned him in the past. At the February meeting, they gave him no such warning, Ford said, adding if they had he would have refrained from voting on the item.

He admitted on the stand that, under the Act, it is his responsibility to be aware of potential conflicts. In a June 28 deposition in which Ruby questioned the mayor, Ford initially seemed to think the onus was on the officials.

Ford told court he did not bother going to a council orientation session when he was first elected in 2000 and does not recall receiving a handbook — which explains the Act, describes what conflicts are and how to seek advice on them from city staff — that year or after the following three elections.

Ford testified: “I don’t recall receiving a handbook as a councillor or as mayor” — one of the many times he cited a hazy memory.

“What steps, if any, did you take to find out what the Municipal Conflict of Interest Act required of you?” Ruby asked. Ford replied: “None.”

The hearing is scheduled to end Friday. Hackland is likely to release his ruling at a later date.

With files from Robyn Doolittle