Day 006 - 05 Jul 94 - Page 12

     
     1        to your opinion, I suppose, yes.
 
     2   Q.   If you do have a national statistics, are you prepared to
              make them available to the court?
     3        A.  If we have them, they can be made available.  I am not
              familiar with any.  I do not recall a document regularly
     4        passed to me that shows a summation of this, that and the
              other.  It does not exist, in my mind.
     5
         Q.   Can we just make a note for the court?  We treat that as a
     6        formal application for discovery.
 
     7   MR. RAMPTON:  That is as may be, my Lord.  That will have to be
              heard separately after full legal argument, as it has been
     8        before.  I fear to say that Mr. Preston, if he will
              forgive me, must in these matters be governed by his
     9        lawyers.
 
    10   MR. MORRIS:  Mr. Preston, you could save a lot of time if you
              just authorise those statistics to be given.
    11
         MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No.  That completely begs the question as to
    12        whether I say they should be.  There is still the question
              of relevance and all the other considerations.
    13
         MR. MORRIS:  Let us look at a particular region.
    14
         MR. JUSTICE BELL:  If I may say so, it is really much the same
    15        as asking this witness whether he is responsible for who
              is being called.  Unless there is something quite
    16        remarkable about this company's relationship with its
              lawyers, the chief executive, with every respect to him,
    17        will have had limited or no input into how the leading
              counsel instructed by solicitors on a company's behalf
    18        advises the case should be conducted.
 
    19   MR. MORRIS:  I do not necessary agree but in this case because
              of what Mr. Preston said -----
    20
         MR. JUSTICE BELL:  We will see what comes out, but that is what
         I would expect in any case where a corporate body is a
              litigant.
    22
         MR. MORRIS:  If we go to pink 13- 52 -- I do not know if that
    23        is the same file.  This is about the electrocution of Mark
              Hopkins, a floor manager in the Arndale store in
    24        Manchester in 1992, is it not?
              A.  Yes.
    25
         Q.   Is it a fact that Mr. Hopkins died? 
    26        A.  Regrettably, yes. 
  
    27   Q.   If we go to page 773?
              A.  77?
    28
         Q.   Page 773?
    29        A.  Yes.
 
    30   Q.   Is it not a fact that this says:  "There have been several
              recent incidents in our restaurants" -- it is headed