Day 279 - 12 Jul 96 - Page 05
1
2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Very well.
3
4 MS. STEEL: And, yes, he never resiled from that point and,
5 incidentally, on the very following page is one of the
6 insults by Mr. Rampton that I was referring to where he
7 said that it is hard work and the defendants are resistant
8 to that, when I said that we had had to put up with insults
9 throughout the trial.
10
11 The final thing that I wanted to bring up is that, as
12 I said yesterday, the plaintiffs have made various what I
13 see as slurs on me throughout this case and before the case
14 started. And, in particular, there was one a few weeks ago
15 where they were talking about how I had phoned Michelle
16 Hooker and how we had lied to the court because we knew we
17 had spoken to Michelle Hooker and that I had made all kinds
18 of dire threats to her and her family. I note that Mr.
19 Rampton did not have the courage to ask me anything about
20 this yesterday and obviously he is not calling Miss Hooker
21 as a witness, and I just wanted to say that I have actually
22 taped that phone conversation and I would like the court to
23 listen to it to see just how ridiculous Mr. Rampton's
24 allegations were.
25
26 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not going to do that for the simple
27 reason that I do not propose to take it into account one
28 way or the other. If you did not come out of it any the
29 worse--
30
31 MS. STEEL: No, it is just that I feel that there been continual
32 slurs and inference that Mr. Rampton and, before him,
33 Mr. Shields has been trying to put on my character and none
34 of them have never been, you know, put to me or any
35 evidence brought on it.
36
37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There are two things. The first is, one runs
38 into problems if something is said as to whether you can
39 then, which is denied, which goes purely as to character,
40 as to whether you can call evidence to support it or not.
41 Because the rule is that you are stuck with the answers of
42 a witness and you cannot call evidence to support your own
43 point, but that is all by the way here. The fact is I am
44 not going to take it into account against you, and it is
45 what I think is concerned that matters. I understand that
46 you are anxious to put the record straight publicly, but
47 you have said you have got a tape about it and what I
48 cannot justify is playing the tape in open court just so
49 the rest of the world can see whether you are right or
50 not. Because that is not my concern as a judge. So that
51 is the case.
52
53 MR. RAMPTON: I do ask your Lordship to remember, since we are
54 now in open court and Miss Steel has brought it up, that I
55 deliberately asked your Lordship to hear what I had to say
56 in chambers.
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I know, but I was not going to mention that,
59 but there you are. The point is it is not going to affect
60 it. I am not going to start speculating about whether it
