Day 309 - 03 Dec 96 - Page 02
1 Tuesday, 3rd December, 1996
2
3 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I did not feel slightly inhibited about
4 saying anything at all. So far as the factual topics are
5 concerned -- that is to say, the seven topics -- I have put
6 everything that I want to say into those written
7 submissions.
8
9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
10
11 MR. RAMPTON: There are other parts still to come; that is to
12 say, publication, malice, the counterclaim and damages.
13 The first three of those I would expect to have -- they are
14 being typed at the moment, ready for your Lordship either
15 tomorrow or the next day. Alternatively, if your Lordship
16 would prefer it, I have got them here in my mucky
17 handwriting, I can go through them orally. That does
18 strike me something of a waste of your Lordship's time.
19
20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have found it helpful to have your
21 submissions so far in writing. I have read them.
22 I confess that Mr. Atkinson's volume on the three
23 particular stalls I have read through quite quickly.
24
25 MR. RAMPTON: Yes.
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have not attempted, at this stage, entirely
28 to digest all the tables in the other binders, but I have
29 read those. The net result is that when I get your
30 submissions on the other topics, I will have your
31 submissions in writing; I have effectively got Ms. Steel's
32 and Mr. Morris's in writing, because I have 1,000 pages or
33 so of transcript of what they said, and, by the time I sit
34 down to start writing a judgment, I will have all those
35 transcripts in front of me as well as my notes to refer to.
36
37 MR. RAMPTON: What it seemed to me -- and I know I am speaking
38 out of turn, because it is entirely your Lordship's
39 decision how this should be dealt with -- we are obviously
40 going to be available, I am not going to go away nor is
41 Mrs. Brinley-Codd or Mr. Atkinson, at all times until the
42 end of this term, and what it struck me was your Lordship
43 has only had four days. I do not know how fast your
44 Lordship reads, but to read the whole of that is something
45 of an achievement, and I had not expected your Lordship
46 would have digested the calculations, looked at critically
47 the calculations and the tables, and so on and so forth.
48
49 What did occur to me was that perhaps the best thing is --
50 we are, as I say, available -- if there are points which
51 your Lordship would wish to hear argument from me or have
52 information about how I have done a particular table, or
53 whatever it may be, or points of law, we will come over as
54 and when.
55
56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I have done as I went through them
57 I have made a note of certain things I would like to ask
58 you in relation to each topic. They really follow this
59 form, having had the benefit of listening to what Ms. Steel
60 and Mr. Morris have had to say about meaning as well as my
