Day 165 - 27 Sep 95 - Page 05
1 enquiry agents' notes where they spoke of you and/or
2 Mr. Morris attending at a meeting on such and such a date
3 or a meeting on another date, and of you saying something
4 which might be taken to refer to McDonald's. Apart from
5 the evidence -- perhaps it is just as well I say this so
6 you understand the way I understand the Plaintiffs are
7 putting their case -- apart from any statement in there
8 that you were seen with a copy of this leaflet or were
9 heard to refer to a copy of this leaflet, there are various
10 other statements either in the proofs of the witness
11 statements of the enquiry agents or in their notes or in
12 both, that you and Mr. Morris or Mr. Morris said something
13 in relation to McDonald's or an anti-McDonald's fair.
14
15 Granted, that I can get from the paragraph you have read to
16 me that you deny ever assisting with the production or
17 distribution of the leaflet. What I do not know at the
18 moment is whether you deny being at the meeting, at any
19 particular meeting, or you say: "I did say something about
20 McDonald's, but it is not what this enquiry agent or that
21 enquiry agent says I said."
22
23 MS. STEEL: Sorry?
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can I give you an example? You have a
26 statement from Mr. James Atkinson which is really done
27 almost entirely on the basis of what your witness or a
28 witness speaking of Marble Arch says. He has gone through
29 it and he has given his comments; he has agreed with some
30 things and he has denied a lot of others. At the moment, I
31 do not have any equivalent to that from you or Mr. Morris
32 in relation to the enquiry agents' evidence. That may be,
33 and I might have some understanding of the situation, if it
34 be so, because you just have not had time to prepare a
35 supplemental statement dealing with the specific
36 allegations which are clear from the enquiry agents'
37 potential evidence.
38
39 It has only cropped up at this stage because you have said
40 that you need the blanked out parts of the enquiry agents'
41 notes for cross-examination as to credit in part. Quite
42 apart from anything which Thorpe says, before I can see
43 whether there is anything in that, it has occurred to me
44 that I really ought to know how much you are challenging of
45 the enquiry agents' evidence.
46
47 If I can give you an example, just the way my mind might
48 work so you can grapple with it and prepare yourselves, if
49 in an enquiry agent's evidence there were 20 statements
50 about things you said or did at meetings which related to
51 McDonald's, that is, things you said or did which related
52 to McDonald's, and if you disputed two or three of them but
53 accepted the other 17, i.e. did not positively challenge
54 them, that might be much more to the point one way or the
55 other on whether at the end of the day I thought the
56 enquiry agent's evidence was reliable or not, than whether
57 he had got it right on some matter which was nothing at all
58 to do with McDonald's.
59
60 That is just thinking aloud so that you can see it. What
