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

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