Day 148 - 05 Jul 95 - Page 06
1 Farrer, who made a very, very brief statement two years
2 ago, has now made a great long statement refuting our
3 witnesses from her store which is Seven Sisters store.
4 Tony Giardina has just made another great long
5 supplementary statement, about 20 pages or something, which
6 I was looking at last night for the first time and I have
7 not really read it properly. Mr. Atkinson, I believe, is a
8 completely new witnesses.
9
10 These are witnesses that Mr. Rampton hopes to call before
11 the break. Almass Antena has just made a great long
12 statement in response to Anne Tobin, I believe, and One
13 Every Mile which she is responding to and Anne Tobin. All
14 our statements that they are responding to were disclosed
15 at least a year and a half ago.
16
17 We have only just literally in the last seven days or so
18 got a lot of new statements, including supplementaries also
19 from Frank Stanton and Mark Davies who the Plaintiffs
20 propose to call first, I believe. So, effectively,
21 I cannot think myself what other witnesses there are for
22 McDonald's to call maybe after the break, but I think that
23 it does put us at a disadvantage that all these
24 supplementaries and additional witnesses have been served
25 at the very last moment. It has given us no time at all to
26 contact our witnesses for their comments. I do not know
27 where that leaves us.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not think it leads to any actual
30 difficulty. You must do your best to cross-examine them on
31 the information you have. It is quite clear from looking
32 at your witnesses again, after seeing the extra additional
33 statements which have been served, that we have what looks
34 like an outright conflict of recollection, I will put it
35 that way, between a witness whom you propose to call and
36 have available to call and a witness who McDonald's propose
37 to call.
38
39 No-one could justifiably criticise you if you failed to put
40 to a McDonald's witness something which one of your
41 witnesses then gives evidence on in the autumn if the
42 reason for failing to put it is clearly that you have not
43 had time to check with that witness since the supplemental
44 statement is made. But the other reason why I say this, I
45 do not think you are going to suffer any harm from it. I
46 am as confident as I could possibly be that when these
47 witnesses get into the witness box on both sides there
48 will, yet again, be things said by them which I am not
49 going to stop which do not appear in the statements.
50
51 I am absolutely confident that your witnesses from time to
52 time will say things which are not in their statements.
53 I am absolutely confident that McDonald's witnesses from
54 time to time will say things which are not in their
55 statements. If we try to have a water tight system to make
56 sure that all parties have been able to consult their own
57 witnesses on every allegation which is made, we would be
58 having statements in reply, rejoinders to those
59 rerejoinders to those and it would never end.
60
