Day 243 - 02 May 96 - Page 28
1 result of a recent application made by the other side,
2 namely, the Defendants, but obviously the sooner any
3 statements, supplementary statements, are provided, the
4 better.
5
6 MR. RAMPTON: The ground work has been done; it is only a
7 question now of getting the statements in proper form and
8 delivering them. I do not know how long that will take.
9 I will not, if I may be forgiven, give an actual deadline
10 for it, but it will be soon rather than late. My Lord, I
11 do not think I have anything else.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I would like, obviously, to be kept up to
14 date on any of these things.
15
16 Ms. Steel and Mr. Morris, it seems to me that you and your
17 publication witnesses ought to be ready to fill time from
18 Monday, 24th June, onwards.
19
20 MS. STEEL: There is actually something I wanted to ask about
21 our evidence, because when Mr. Rampton said he put down a
22 week for each of us, one thing I was not clear about was
23 how long of that he thought was going to be
24 cross-examination, because he said he was going to be quite
25 a long time cross-examining you. Obviously, we have to
26 think about how long we think we may be giving evidence,
27 bearing in mind that we have to refer to documents for the
28 sake of malice and things like that.
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. I would like you to give some thought
31 to how long you expect to take in-chief. At the moment,
32 I have your statements and, as far as I am concerned, your
33 evidence is in your statements with this rider, that you
34 may wish to say something in your own defence with regard
35 to the allegation of malice, even if it is in very general
36 terms, as to what you believe and why you believe that. It
37 need not be, it seems to me, in great detail.
38
39 What you have to think about is if you say that you believe
40 something to be so, you have to think how you can, put
41 quite shortly, whether by reference to documents or
42 otherwise, why you say that is so.
43
44 You may very well be -- indeed, I expect you will be --
45 cross-examined about it to some extent. That is a matter
46 for Mr. Rampton. It may be that your evidence-in-chief
47 will not be very, very long. You have to deal with the
48 case of publication against you. You have to deal with
49 that. You may have some direct evidence to give on other
50 aspects, but you have to be careful that it is admissible
51 and it does not basically appear in your statements at the
52 moment.
53
54 So, if there are any other aspects on which you feel you
55 can give admissible evidence and you would wish to do so,
56 you have to produce some written notice of that fairly
57 promptly. I am not encouraging you to think that that is
58 so.
59
60 MS. STEEL: There are some things; for example, the photographs
