Day 182 - 02 Nov 95 - Page 67
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2 MR. MORRIS: I am not sure I am so grateful, but Ms. Steel wants
3 to say something.
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5 MS. STEEL: I just wanted to say something. I am not quite sure
6 that I understand, Mr. Rampton wants or the possibility is
7 there of wanting to bring a statement of somebody to
8 discredit either of our two French witnesses, but it has to
9 be not just to credit. In other words, it has to be
10 something to do with the issues in dispute surrounding
11 this, but I thought that Mr. Rampton had already said that
12 he cannot get any witnesses on this subject because -----
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14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is not right for me to enquire of
15 Mr. Rampton because he has gone further now than, perhaps,
16 he was obliged to do, but let us contemplate this
17 situation: If you read the statement, if, for instance,
18 Mr. Rampton had in his possession a statement either from
19 Mr. Lamti or Miss Villeneuve of, let us suppose, a written
20 statement which is inconsistent with what is in their Civil
21 Evidence Act statements, or if he was able to call someone
22 who is not subject to a French embargo, who were able to
23 say: "Well, Mr. Lamti told me something which is completely
24 inconsistent with that", he would be able to put the
25 inconsistent written statement by way of example to the
26 witness if the witness was called into the witness box.
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28 On my interpretation of section 7, if the witness's Civil
29 Evidence Act statement is put in under section 2 of the
30 Act, section 7 allows Mr. Rampton to adduce evidence of the
31 inconsistent previous statement of Mr. Lamti or
32 Miss Villeneuve-Gallaiz.
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34 MS. STEEL: I understand that.
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36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Then I have to decide where, if anywhere,
37 that takes me. But all -----
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39 MS. STEEL: I think I understand what has been said about the
40 legal procedure. What I do not understand, I mean, well,
41 I suppose I can understand that if it is a previous
42 statement as Mr. Lamti or Miss Villeneuve-Gallaiz, but in
43 terms of anybody else, I thought that Mr. Rampton had
44 already said previously that there was no-one else
45 available to give evidence.
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47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not going to enquire any further of
48 Mr. Rampton. All you need is one example of a situation
49 where something may be produced against you. The most
50 obvious situation is an inconsistent other statement,
51 inconsistent with their Civil Evidence Act statement. You
52 need not look for a second example, a third example; they
53 may be there but I am not going to speculate about them
54 because you have one example if there were an inconsistent
55 other statement.
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57 MR. MORRIS: Yes.
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59 MS. STEEL: The main reason I raised it was just because I was a
60 bit concerned that we have had previous witnesses, things
