Day 148 - 05 Jul 95 - Page 32
1 approach, which is that unless there are some authorities
2 to the contrary, which I have been unable to find, that a
3 person who is a representative of a Plaintiff or a party,
4 then we have the right to place a Civil Evidence Act notice
5 on any quote.
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think you had better give me an example
8 because I am finding it difficult at the moment to see what
9 you are getting at when you speak in general terms. Pick
10 one of the quotes you would like to apply a Civil Evidence
11 Act notice to.
12
13 MR. MORRIS: There may be an example such as a Manager -- it may
14 not be the perfect example -- who McDonald's have given a
15 statement on, who when they give their evidence in court
16 does not have their statement taken as read, but they have
17 actually made a statement, and unless they have
18 expressly -- even if they have expressly denied what they
19 have said and it is not a misprint, but they just changed
20 their mind or something, we should have the right to rely
21 on any quotation as evidence. Of course, the weight given
22 to it is another matter.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is not the way to approach that, assuming
25 that you are talking about people who are going to be
26 called because there is no problem with a Plaintiff's
27 witness who is him or herself subject to a Civil Evidence
28 Act notice because the whole statement is going to go in
29 then. One might have to look and see whether all of it is
30 admissible or not, but that is another point.
31
32 If the person actually gets into the witness box and gives
33 evidence, even if they do not adopt their statement, you
34 are perfectly entitled to ask them if they agree with the
35 terms of their statement either in whole or putting
36 specific parts to them. If they agree with it, then you
37 have achieved what you wanted to. If they say, no, that
38 did not actually happen, or modify it in some way, that is
39 their actual evidence in the case.
40
41 I suppose you could serve a Civil Evidence Act notice
42 saying that the witness said this, that or the other to
43 McDonald's solicitors on such and such a date or in their
44 signed statement, but we are a long way from that problem
45 yet. We do not even know that it is going to arise.
46
47 MR. MORRIS: Yes, it was not a very good example, but I am just
48 saying that is one of the potential areas. I am not saying
49 that is something we are going to do, but maybe a more
50 relevant area would be to, say, for example, in the film
51 "One Every Mile" there are statements made by McDonald's
52 managers in the film which we may want to put -- we
53 probably will do once we get organised on the subject and
54 have time -- a Civil Evidence Act notice on, or it may be a
55 quote from Paul Preston in the Evening Standard, as we have
56 heard in the case, or other matters.
57
58 It is not as if this is like a whole massive area of new
59 evidence. It is just as it has come up throughout the
60 case. From time to time we have pointed out the bits we
