Day 177 - 26 Oct 95 - Page 10

     
     1   MR. RAMPTON:  There are very considerable problems about it.  It
     2        is completely devoid of names, particularly where he is
     3        talking about what he was told by people higher up.
     4        I could not possibly consent to his being called as a
     5        witness until I have those details and a chance to ask the
     6        people alleged to have been concerned in all of this.  This
     7        is a statement which is coy to the most extraordinary
     8        degree.  What I would like to be able to do, my Lord, is to
     9        go through it and send the Defendants a formal request for
    10        particulars, absent of which I would ask your Lordship to
    11        debar this evidence.
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  All I will say at the moment is, in
    14        principle, I would be minded to give leave to call
    15        Mr. Coton.  I think you should have your letter written as
    16        soon as possible, and Mr. Morris should do his best to find
    17        the details, and we will pick it up later.
    18
    19   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes.
    20
    MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Just let me make a note.  I will put
    22        Mr. Coton in pale blue II at the end of section A, for the
    23        time being.  Yes.
    24
    25   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I am not going on to nutrition.  I do not
    26        know whether your Lordship would like me to say something
    27        about Bath or not at this stage.  We have told Mr. Morris
    28        that we would mention it to your Lordship today.  If
    29        your Lordship would like an update, I can give it.
    30
    31   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
    32
    33   MR. RAMPTON:  It affects the scheduling of Mr. Logan, amongst
    34        other things.  We now have, we think, all the relevant
    35        documents that your Lordship ordered us to disclose from
    36        the Bath restaurant, and some additional ones, which we
    37        also think are relevant, which help in the interpretation
    38        of the documents your Lordship has ordered.  Some of them
    39        cannot be found; well, that is just too bad.  But, in
    40        total, we are looking at, I would say, at least two large
         lever arch files which contain -- as one would expect,
    42        because we have done three months, August 1993, May 1994
    43        and August 1994 -- a vast amount of detail about hours, and
    44        so on and so forth, for I think a total of, at any one
    45        time, about 80 crew members, maximum 85 or 86.  Also, of
    46        course, there are personnel files, the rap sessions notes,
    47        which are more numerous than I had supposed, and the Human
    48        Resources audit reports.
    49
    50        If Mr. Logan's evidence is going to make any sense at all, 
    51        he, the Defendants and I are going to have to plough 
    52        through those documents in advance of his giving evidence. 
    53        I have to say, that is a lot of work.  Just on May
    54        documents it took me the best part of two days to work out
    55        some figures by reference to the documents.  One
    56        necessarily has to go through the same exercise for the two
    57        other months.  So there is a lot of work involved in that
    58        for all parties concerned, so that, in the end, when
    59        Mr. Logan comes to give evidence about it, your Lordship
    60        will be enabled to get the picture of the Bath restaurant