Day 268 - 24 Jun 96 - Page 17
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Thank you, Mr. Claire.
2
3 MR. RAMPTON: Do you think Mr. Claire could be released? I
4 cannot see why he should need to come back.
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Leave the bundles there, Mr. Claire.
7
8 (Witness withdrew)
9
10 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I will, with your Lordship's permission,
11 leave Mr. Atkinson to deal with the reading. I say this
12 now, and it is right to say this now rather than later, in
13 relation to Mr. Patel we had had two witnesses, Mr. Neil
14 Blazie and Miss Janet Neezie, who are at tabs 29 and 30 of
15 yellow volume 10. It will be our intention, in view of
16 what has happened in relation to Mr. Patel, to seek your
17 Lordship's leave to give that evidence from our witnesses
18 by way of Civil Evidence Act statement. Of course, we know
19 where they are and, as far as I know, they are alive and
20 well and living in this country. It could be -- if it is,
21 I will deal with it when the time comes.
22
23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Very well.
24
25 MR. RAMPTON: I am not asking for leave to read those statements
26 now. I merely give warning that that will be my
27 intention.
28
29 MS. STEEL: Just before Mr. Rampton leaves, there is something I
30 wanted to bring up.
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Just pause a moment. Yes.
33
34 MS. STEEL: It is just about Mr. Rampton asking Mr. Claire to
35 aver all his notes last week, and actually at the time we
36 did not realize what was going on in terms of that was Mr.
37 Rampton wanting them all brought in as evidence, because
38 obviously we had had no prior notice that that was going to
39 be done and all those matters were going to be taken as
40 evidence. I do not know, you know, what the situation is
41 now, but, you know, effectively Mr. Claire's evidence was
42 lengthened considerably without any kind of notice that
43 that was going to happen. And there were some matters in
44 there that we might not have considered as particularly
45 important or going to have to raise with Mr. Claire which
46 we then had to, you know, make spur of the moment and
47 unprepared decisions to ask questions about. And I am just
48 not happy, bearing in mind the amount of hassle we have
49 from Mr. Rampton about having to give prior notice of
50 everything, I am not happy that that has been done with Mr.
51 Claire. But, I mean, I do not know what can be done about
52 it.
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not think it is a matter to be discussed
55 now. I have only so far heard the Plaintiff's evidence on
56 publication anyway. I do not know for certain whether you
57 are going to call witnesses on publication, what they are
58 going to say, and I am not going to make any comment on
59 something like that at the moment. I will just consider
60 all the evidence when I have heard it and if, when you are
