Day 149 - 06 Jul 95 - Page 03
1 now."
2
3 The second matter is this: if I thought that the interests
4 of justice would be served by me hearing any relevant
5 evidence which Ms. Hovi can further give, or Mr. Bone could
6 give, then in case that is my decision when I have
7 reflected on it, I would like to hear what you say about
8 the order in which they should come into the witness box.
9
10 MS. STEEL: I was going to deal with that. I just wanted to
11 briefly deal with the assertions that Mr. Rampton was
12 making regarding us supposedly telling Ms. Hovi,
13 deliberately telling her not to give a full statement so
14 that we could take them by surprise.
15
16 Mr. Morris did deal with this when it was raised on Day
17 112, 31st March. I will repeat what he said, to reinforce
18 it, that we do not ask our witnesses to do any more than
19 they can reasonably do, unpaid, in their own spare time,
20 voluntarily for us. Obviously, we are not paying our
21 witnesses to prepare their reports, and they do have to do
22 them in their own spare time. As far as we can see, it was
23 a substantial statement which put all the allegations down
24 that we were able to see that were relevant, and that in
25 every case more details come out for every witness when
26 they get in the witness box.
27
28 We were not able to send solicitors to take a full
29 statement from her, to perhaps probe matters a lot more, to
30 get out more detail and ascertain if there was something
31 that was more important. This certainly was not some kind
32 of deliberate plot to take the Plaintiffs by surprise. As
33 far as we are concerned, all the relevant issues were in
34 the statement and covered.
35
36 I would reiterate that the detail that was added when she
37 gave her evidence was in response to the evidence of
38 Mr. Bennett, the supposed records of daily or hourly checks
39 that were disclosed, the results of swab tests, and such
40 like, and the plan that was produced by Jarretts.
41 Obviously, she pointed out inaccuracies that she could see
42 in that.
43
44 As far as the plan goes, I find it very hard to believe the
45 explanation given by the Plaintiffs concerning the plan.
46 I do not what kind of company, in response to a statement
47 that there is a shortage of sterilising and handwashing
48 facilities, then draws up an inaccurate plan to counter the
49 allegation but fails to include all the facilities which it
50 now says there are, or does not put them in the correct
51 places or does not mark where they are not accessible to
52 people -- for example, where they are on a raised platform
53 which people could not get to with ease.
54
55 Mr. Rampton also said -- I think this was the second plank
56 of his application -- whether or not they were taken by
57 surprise by the evidence of Ms. Hovi in the witness box, he
58 was going to apply for Mr. Bone to give evidence on the
59 grounds that if any importance was to be attached to what
60 goes on at Jarretts, he should be able to state the Company
