Day 243 - 02 May 96 - Page 30
1
2 If either party says, "We would like to raise this question
3 or that question before we all go away", then obviously if
4 that is a useful course to take, it can be taken. But I do
5 not think that time need be set aside in the schedule for
6 legal submissions.
7
8 MS. STEEL: OK.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If you want to talk, for instance, again
11 about formal speeches, we can spend some time doing that.
12
13 MS. STEEL: OK.
14
15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But that is just with a view to helping you
16 prepare what you are going to say when we come back. Is
17 there anything else?
18
19 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, yes. There are a couple of things I
20 would certainly say. Can I start where your Lordship
21 finished? The only legal submission which, perhaps, might
22 need a decision before the speeches are written and
23 delivered are any questions on admissibility. I am quite
24 happy to do it myself in the course of my closing speech
25 and then leave it in your Lordship's hands as part of the
26 judgment -- that does not trouble me at all -- but there
27 are, obviously, in the whole of this case a number of areas
28 where both sides would want to use material which may or
29 may not be admissible. In other words, it may or may not
30 be evidence.
31
32 As I say, I am quite happy to put forward the material
33 which I believe to be admissible and to leave it to your
34 Lordship to decide after I have made my closing speech, but
35 it might be more satisfactory to do that before speeches
36 are actually written.
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Not within the next few days ----
39
40 MR. RAMPTON: No, obviously.
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- because the Defendants may need time to
43 think about it, but I thought the ball had been set rolling
44 on this by Mrs. Brinley-Codd's letter with her list of
45 documents?
46
47 MR. RAMPTON: It had. It is just that we have not had a
48 response to that -- I am not complaining about it except
49 that in due course your Lordship is going to have to know
50 what people accept without argument, in which case your
51 Lordship can accept it, whether or not it is strictly
52 proved, and what matters are in dispute because if there
53 are matters in dispute, then they may have to be argued.
54
55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Certainly so far as documentation is
56 concerned, it seems to me that it would probably be a good
57 idea to embark on that at some stage before we actually get
58 to the end of the evidence because it is one thing in
59 speeches to argue that the evidence given by this witness
60 or that witness was inadmissible, for one reason or
