Day 070 - 20 Dec 94 - Page 55
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2 MR. MORRIS: I do not know if he might even be going away or
3 something; I think certainly a bit longer than that.
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5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can you suggest a deadline, Mr. Rampton?
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7 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, no. I am not willing to do that because
8 I am conscious of your Lordship's very proper appreciation
9 of the Defendants' difficulties, Mr. North is not under
10 their control. I merely observe that Mr. North's relevant
11 visits were made in August which is, frankly, ages ago.
12 I do not know what his difficulties are. I have absolutely
13 no idea. Plainly, we are not going to embark in any
14 serious way on a sort of hygiene issue in respect of the
15 matters which he has investigated until we have his
16 statement -- we cannot.
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18 The only effect of his not serving his statement is that
19 the whole thing is held up. I would suggest that, perhaps,
20 a better terminus would be the end of the first week of the
21 term which, I think, is 13th January.
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23 MS. STEEL: Perhaps if we just tell him that it has been
24 indicated that he should serve it.
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26 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. I will make a direction -- it is not a
27 final order -- that you serve a statement of Mr. North by
28 Friday, 13th January. You can perfectly correctly tell him
29 it has been taken out of your hands and that is the order
30 which the Judge has made.
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32 MR. MORRIS: I think with Miss Link that is a slightly different
33 kettle of fish because there is quite a substantial amount
34 of documentation on packaging which she will not have seen,
35 and it may take her time to go through. She has only
36 agreed to do it last week in any event. As we have already
37 heard, most of the packaging evidence and Mr. Bateman is
38 -- I believe the Plaintiffs are saying that once they
39 have seen her statement then they will be calling him at
40 some stage afterwards.
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42 MR. RAMPTON: No, I did not say that. I would consider whether
43 I needed to call him so soon as I have Miss Link's
44 statement -- I may not need to.
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46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I am minded to do is make a direction
47 that her statement be served by Monday, 31st January.
48 I pick that date because it is a date I put on Further and
49 Better Particulars and it is better to have fewer dates.
50 So, that is the same date as the order in relation to
51 Further and Better Particulars to be served by the
52 Plaintiffs. It is not connected in any way with those
53 Further and Better Particulars, but it is with a view to
54 better remembering when these things are due.
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56 MR. MORRIS: The matter of the Plaintiffs' affidavits, we now
57 have them and, obviously, we will have to check them and
58 come back to those.
59
60 The schedule -- it looks like we will finish today -- and
