Day 148 - 05 Jul 95 - Page 07
1 So I am determined to get on with it and I will not be
2 impressed by any point. I do not think Mr. Rampton will
3 deliver it that "This was not put to my witness in July"
4 when we hear your witness in October.
5
6 MR. RAMPTON: No, my Lord. I have already said that I will not
7 take that route.
8
9 MS. STEEL: I do not think, with respect, that is the point. It
10 is not just a question of whether we will not be criticised
11 for not putting a certain matter to their witnesses. We
12 may get an admission from them if we put certain matters to
13 their witnesses. If we do not have the opportunity to
14 contact our witnesses first to advise us if there is a
15 particular matter that we should ask about surrounding
16 something that has just come up in a supplementary
17 statement, we are not going to be able to have that
18 opportunity of maybe eliciting an admission during
19 cross-examination.
20
21 When the Plaintiffs have complained about us serving
22 witness statements late they have said, and it has been
23 said, that we have the advantage because we go second. If
24 we are being served witness statements not in enough time
25 to get further information in order to cross-examine their
26 witnesses, we are being put at a disadvantage and it is not
27 fair.
28
29 As Mr. Morris has said, these statements are all made in
30 response to things that have been in our witness statements
31 for a year and a half, and in the case of One Every Mile, I
32 do not know how long that has been disclosed for but a
33 considerable period of time, at least a year and a half.
34 There is absolutely no reason why the Plaintiffs could not
35 have served these witness statements several months ago at
36 least.
37
38 They have got a full legal team able to take further
39 statements for them and get all this work done. They have
40 absolutely no reason why it should not have been done. We
41 are already under incredible pressure with the amount of
42 organisation that we have to get done, and this just adds
43 to that massive burden. I really do not think it is fair
44 on the part of -- I do not think that the Plaintiffs'
45 behaviour in this respect is fair at all.
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: In my view, the public interest in pressing
48 on with the evidence in this case far outweighs any
49 question such as you have raised. I do not think you will,
50 in fact, suffer any prejudice at all. At the end of this
51 case we are going to have a mass of detail, some of which
52 may be helpful to me in reaching a decision and a lot of
53 which may not about issues between one person and another
54 as to what happened in this store at such and such a time
55 and so on.
56
57 The public interest and the interests of the parties, in my
58 view, is best served with getting on with those witnesses
59 as soon as possible.
60
