Day 165 - 27 Sep 95 - Page 36


     
     1        moment?
     2
     3   MR. RAMPTON:  I would have to say, contrary to my earlier
     4        expectations, hopes, I cannot see the evidence ending
     5        before Christmas and probably not until perhaps the end of
     6        January.  Something, of course, will depend on what ruling
     7        your Lordship makes about the meaning of the leaflet.   So,
     8        that may affect any additional nutritional evidence.  But,
     9        making the assumption that has to be called, there are odds
    10        and ends elsewhere.  There is Mr. Fairgrieve; there is the
    11        paper making people and there may be others that I have
    12        forgotten; Mr. Preston has to come back; other people of
    13        that kind.  I doubt whether it is terribly likely that we
    14        should get seriously embarked on publication much before
    15        Christmas, certainly it is, I fear, that we shall not
    16        finish it before Christmas.
    17
    18        Therefore, taking all things into account, including one's
    19        experience in this case and due breaks for preparation
    20        which your Lordship has always allowed and, in my
    21        respectful view, properly so, if I may say so, one cannot
    22        really be sensibly confident that the evidence will finish
    23        before the end of January.  What your Lordship decides
    24        shall be done with the case thereafter, of course, is
    25        entirely another matter.
    26
    27   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Is there a specific reason why the French
    28        witnesses have been put in at the beginning of the week
    29        beginning 9th October?
    30
    31   MR. RAMPTON:  No, there is not.  That is not something that has
    32        been confirmed with them.  It has been done like because we
    33        thought it might appeal to your Lordship.  But, if your
    34        Lordship felt that it might be better to do something else
    35        instead, I am quite sure that they can be deferred until
    36        some later date.  It does mean that the evidence may not go
    37        strictly back-to-back because your Lordship may say:  "We
    38        should have some evidence in the week beginning the 9th".
    39        If that were so, it would have to be the Defendants'
    40        evidence because we do not have anybody else on
    41        employment.
    42
    43        We do have to have the argument on meaning at some stage,
    44        that is true, which could be had that week.  But the French
    45        witnesses are not fixed for that date.  We have put them in
    46        because we thought your Lordship would want us, as far as
    47        we could, to finish our employment evidence in a run, but
    48        that is not set in concrete by any means.  They could
    49        certainly be put off until later.  They could, perhaps, go
    50        in the same week as Mr. Mehigan -- this is just an 
    51        hypothesis -- so there could be a week of Plaintiff's 
    52        evidence between two weeks of Defendants' evidence, just a 
    53        possibility.
    54
    55   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I will hear what Ms. Steel and what
    56        Mr. Morris want to say, but I have some anxiety at the
    57        moment of them coming probably something like a week after
    58        their statements have been served.  Quite apart from that,
    59        I can see some benefit in the French witnesses on both side
    60        coming reasonably close together, whether they are actually

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