Day 284 - 22 Oct 96 - Page 04


     
     1
     2   MR. MORRIS:   When your Lordship asked me the other day I said
     3        conservatively three to four weeks for judge alone, it is
     4        more likely three than four, judge alone, more likely six
     5        and seven with a jury.  I am not trying to exaggerate, that
     6        is how it seems to me at the moment, Mr. Rampton, page 27,
     7        on 21st December 1993.
     8
     9   MR. RAMPTON:   Yes, my Lord.  I think I ought to intervene there
    10        to remind your Lordship that that was at a stage when most
    11        of the defence had been struck out.
    12
    13   MR. MORRIS:   Most of the defence.  Mr. Rampton seems to be
    14        wildly exaggerating.  A seventh had been struck out.  And
    15        secondly, just on the subject of your ruling on the jury,
    16        I can understand what you are saying.  It seems to be a
    17        double-edged interpretation where basically the concern was
    18        the jury would not be able to understand ----
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   Do not worry about it.  My concern is this:
    21        one, if not the complete reason, I cannot remember exactly
    22        what I said, but one reason why I was concerned about the
    23        jury understanding was not intellectual capacity, it was
    24        they would not be able to take the papers away, they would
    25        not read them in advance, they would not be able to sit at
    26        home and read them.
    27
    28        It is not a question, as it has turned out, that this is
    29        with the wisdom in hindsight of being able to take a few
    30        off to another room in the Royal Courts of Justice.  I am
    31        sure we all know that the moment you take two bundles away
    32        with you to do some work, it takes about three minutes flat
    33        before you realise that you need another bundle which you
    34        have not brought with you.  You need 12 sets of bundles
    35        with members of the jury scurrying backwards and forwards
    36        to get them.
    37
    38        But all this has gone now.  Whether the decision was right
    39        or wrong, I made it and the Court of Appeal did not disturb
    40        it.  That is the position.
    41
    42        Now, having had that bit of skirmishing on the horizon a
    43        few miles from the main battlefield, get yourself organised
    44        and let us carry on with the important points.
    45
    46   MR. MORRIS:   Yes.  On the next matter, which will include the
    47        meaning, bearing in mind the comments that were made
    48        yesterday, that somebody -- we asked to check out Clerk &
    49        Lindsell, which I believe is some standard text --
    50 
    51   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It is a text book on the law of tort. 
    52 
    53   MR. MORRIS:   Yes.  Could not find any basis for refusing to
    54        allow facts to support the comment that...
    55
    56   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Whoever it was should forget Clerk & Lindsell
    57        and look at Duncan and Neil and Gatley, the main textbooks
    58        on the law of defamation.
    59
    60   MR. MORRIS:   And, I do not know, someone did -- I mean, our

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