Day 253 - 21 May 96 - Page 51


     
     1        it is extremely difficult to name specific dates.
     2
     3        Obviously we are not in a position to find out the
     4        identities of each and every inquiry agent.  Beyond the
     5        ones we already know, we have absolutely no way of finding
     6        out.
     7
     8        I do not really understand the point about the names not
     9        ever being known, if that is what he said, because they
    10        must have had some form of being able to identify who the
    11        agent was otherwise anything that they were told would be
    12        effectively useless because they could never follow up on
    13        it, or call the person as a witness or anything like that.
    14
    15        If that was the intention from the start, that they were
    16        never going to use that person, then I would also argue
    17        that any notes relating to anything that that person said
    18        at any meeting would not be privileged because it was not
    19        information handed over for the purposes of legal
    20        proceedings.  It just seems that it cannot be so, that they
    21        do not have any means of finding out who that person is,
    22        quite accessible or easy.
    23
    24        I do not think I have anything else to say, although I am
    25        not sure.  Basically, all our application is is for the
    26        interrogatories.  It is not for discovery.  It is not for
    27        anything else, and I do not know whether a lot of the stuff
    28        Mr. Rampton was saying was more or less irrelevant in terms
    29        of the question about interrogatories, so I will not answer
    30        it, unless you particularly think there is something that
    31        needs answering, the things about how we had not provided
    32        information about what our pleadings were based on and
    33        things like that.  It does not really seem it is relevant
    34        to this particular question of interrogatories.
    35
    36   MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not see that as being necessarily at
    37        issue on the interrogatories.  I think, in any event, you
    38        have got to think about whatever information you get from
    39        the Plaintiffs, or have got from the Plaintiffs.
    40
    41        If you are actually, so far as your case of consent to
    42        publication is concerned, hoping to adduce evidence from
    43        your own witnesses, which includes yourself, which goes
    44        beyond what is in the present witness statements, that is
    45        additional from inferences you would invite me to draw from
    46        the Plaintiffs' own witnesses, then you have got to give
    47        notice of that in the usual way by supplemental statements.
    48
    49   MS. STEEL:  I have said we are intending to try and get together
    50        supplementary statements. 
    51 
    52   MR. JUSTICE BELL: If you have got that point, there is nothing 
    53        more I propose to say about that at the moment.
    54
    55   MS. STEEL:  OK.
    56
    57   MR. MORRIS:  There is a fundamental issue on both sides as to
    58        the role of the inquiry agents.  The Plaintiffs are relying
    59        on them and any information they received from any of their
    60        agents, whether identified or not with their real names,

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