Day 302 - 18 Nov 96 - Page 04
1 to actually concern myself with that or whether it is a
2 nice legal point which it was only right of you to put into
3 your submissions in case it crops up but which you do not
4 see as a practical relevance at the moment.
5
6 MR. RAMPTON: I believe the answer to your Lordship's overall
7 question is that in the end it may not make much practical
8 difference, but if I am entitled as a matter of law to put
9 before your Lordship material which neither side actually
10 referred to while the witnesses were in the witness box,
11 then I will do so. How much weight your Lordship will give
12 it, it not having been tested, is another question.
13
14 But if, as a result of the law as it is, the whole of the
15 notes become evidence in the case, as it appears they do,
16 as a result of the cross-examination, then I would be
17 entitled to do that. I am afraid I cannot give a precise
18 answer because I have done the same as your Lordship in
19 note form and I have not got my publication notes here.
20 I don't believe in the end it is going to add very much to
21 what your Lordship has called your narrative, which, as I
22 understand, your Lordship has based on the actual questions
23 asked of the witnesses in the witness box.
24
25 As to the first thing your Lordship said, my recollection
26 is that I was somewhat discouraged, and I do not say that I
27 was the least bit reluctant about that, not to get the
28 earlier witnesses at least to aver the whole of their
29 notes, but that occurred in examination-in-chief and of
30 course the law is if the Defendants had confined themselves
31 to those parts of the notes which I used with each of the
32 witnesses to help them try and remember what happened, the
33 Defendants had confined their cross-examination to those
34 passages, the proposition of law that the whole notes go in
35 does not arise, because it is only if the opposite party
36 goes beyond the parts used in examination-in-chief that
37 -----
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The notes were adopted in evidence, quite
40 apart from any legal point about reference to them making
41 them admissible in evidence, by you referring to the
42 witnesses to them in-chief or in re-examination -- I can't
43 remember now whether there was anything much in in-chief --
44 by either Ms. Steel or Mr. Morris referring to them in so
45 far as they then adopted them, by Ms. Steel or Mr. Morris
46 referring Miss Laporte, Mr. Gravett or Ms. Steel to them in
47 their evidence in-chief or you referring any of those three
48 witnesses to them in-chief in so far as they then adopted
49 them as accurate, or essentially accurate.
50
51 In fact, those references brought in by verification of the
52 witnesses of their notes -- I am not saying they verified
53 all of them, all the parts they were referred to, but
54 brought in by verification -- very large parts of the
55 notes, and it might be thought the greater part by far of
56 the parts of the notes which might be thought to bear on
57 the issue of publication. But, I just repeat what I said a
58 moment ago, that I do not think you are under any strict
59 obligation to do so, but I would very much appreciate you
60 highlighting, and as soon as possible, just by way of list
