Day 087 - 10 Feb 95 - Page 52
1 genuine about wanting to preserve the health and safety of
2 their employees.
3
4 My Lord, I do not think I need say anything more about
5 that. I should add this, that such accident books as
6 relate to incidents specifically pleaded by the Defendants
7 and as still exist have all been disclosed.
8
9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Could you just give me a picture of what they
10 cover? Is it the particular page from an accident book?
11
12 MR. RAMPTON: Sometimes it is. In the case of the Colchester
13 store -- I really am speaking from the depths of my memory
14 now because it is six months or more since I looked at it
15 -- much more than that has been disclosed because there is
16 a specific allegation by one of the Defendants' witnesses
17 that accidents were very frequent and not recorded, or
18 something along those lines. It happened that the
19 Colchester accident book was still in existence. We,
20 therefore, disclosed the whole thing.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is copied somewhere, is it?
23
24 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, I cannot remember where, but I will give your
25 Lordship the reference. That is because the Defendants
26 made a specific allegation and, therefore, the discovery is
27 in accordance with Yorkshire Provident -- volume pink XIII,
28 57L, my Lord. That is one of the old pieces of discovery
29 and it has been there for sometime.
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Thank you.
32
33 MR. RAMPTON: I do not know if it helps if at this stage I might
34 just remind your Lordship, not by referring to the book but
35 to what I conceive to have been the effect of Yorkshire
36 Provident? If you are able to plead ten instances,
37 specific instances, of fraud to support a general charge of
38 fraud, then your right to discovery is confined to those
39 ten instances; you are not entitled to discovery to see
40 whether you can find other instances. My Lord, that has
41 been the law of this country since 1895 and has never been
42 doubted by anybody.
43
44 Mr. Ray Cesca's soya, I believe, I have dealt with. The
45 PHLS report.
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You really rely upon the statement being
48 sufficient? That is what it boils down to.
49
50 MR. RAMPTON: I rely on two things.
51
52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Quite apart from the power point.
53
54 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, quite apart from the power point. Again,
55 this is an issue of almost idiotic insignificance in the
56 context of the case for two reasons: First, because soya
57 has, as Mr. Morris might say, "damn all" to do with the
58 pamphlet; secondly, more particularly, because the actual
59 amounts involved are insignificant and the sources of the
60 soya have nothing whatever to do with rainforests.
