Day 165 - 27 Sep 95 - Page 32
1
2 MR. RAMPTON: I will tell your Lordship in a moment how the
3 discussion has developed. It has not gone very far. There
4 is no criticism of anybody in that, if I may say so. As
5 your Lordship sees from that, the interlocutories have been
6 more or less accurately estimated. Tomorrow there is
7 Mr. James Atkinson. One would hope that he could finish in
8 a day and a half because there is no sitting on Friday
9 afternoon. Monday morning is Mr. Tindale who is short. He
10 only deals with one remark made, I think, by Anne Tobin in
11 her evidence. Then a day and a half for Sean Richards who
12 answers what Mr. Logan has to say about Bath. Then there
13 is Rose French who deals with Mr. Krana has to say about
14 West Ealing. Then on Friday -- I hope it is only one day
15 -- there is Annette Hall who is now, in fact,
16 Mrs. Norris. She prefers to go by her married name. So
17 one could perhaps substitute "Norris" for "Hall". She
18 ought to be a short witness because she deals only with
19 Melanie O'Riordan's accident at Epsom.
20
21 Then my Lord, and this is where I feel some embarrassment
22 (only to a limited extent but still some embarrassment)
23 simply because I do not yet know which ones they will be,
24 it is our intention to call some witnesses from France on
25 Monday and Tuesday to deal with the allegations made by
26 Hassen Lamti and the girl Villeneuve-Gallez.
27
28 I should say, which I am sure your Lordship already
29 understands, that our intention to call witnesses from
30 France as, indeed, witnesses from Canada and Ireland,
31 springs directly from the notice we had on 31st August in
32 the first place and then on, I think, 18th September that
33 the Defendants intended to call as live witnesses certain
34 of their witnesses who had been listed as Civil Evidence
35 Act witnesses only.
36
37 We were notified on 31st August that Monsieur Lamti and
38 Mademoiselle Villeneuve-Gallez would be giving evidence in
39 court. At that point we activated ourselves to see what,
40 if any, witnesses we could bring live from France to answer
41 what they had to say.
42
43 I will, as soon as humanly possible, serve the statements
44 of the French witnesses; I hope it will not be after the
45 beginning of next week. In fact, Mr. Morris has told us in
46 a letter, I think, of 18th September that he cannot or does
47 not want to call his two French witnesses before 15th/16th
48 November which is a long time after our French witnesses
49 are intended to give evidence.
50
51 MR. MORRIS: That is 13th to 15th November.
52
53 MR. RAMPTON: Sorry, I got the dates wrong, 13th to 15th
54 November, about which I make no comment; if that is the
55 date they can do, that is the date they can do. If they
56 have to be slotted into our evidence on some other or the
57 same topics, so be it. I rather suspect that may be the
58 case because I suspect by then we may have started on
59 rain forest, but no matter. I observe in passing, for
60 example, although it was a single topic, that Mr. Lipsett
