Day 312 - 11 Dec 96 - Page 35


     
     1
     2   MR. RAMPTON:  I now have a proper copy of Houston v Smith, so
     3        can I hand that in?  Mr. Atkinson tells me it complete
     4        (handed).
     5
     6   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.  Thank you.  You have come to the end of
     7        that.  Finish it on page 7.  Two o'clock.
     8
     9                        (Luncheon adjournment)
    10
    11   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Perhaps I should say, not to invite comment
    12        but so that everyone knows I fixed on it, I have read
    13        during the break the Hodgkinson, or whatever it is called,
    14        and there are two points of interest in the part on 'what
    15        is an expert'.  The first is this: the author makes what
    16        seems to me to be a very common sense, good common sense,
    17        point that in deciding who is an expert for the purpose of
    18        giving an opinion the practicalities of the matter are that
    19        generally the evidence is allowed in, even though there
    20        might be great arguments about admissibility, and of course
    21        the extent of expertise and whether the witness does have
    22        any expertise at all is relevant to the weight you attach
    23        to it in any event.  That is a practical approach which
    24        I must say appeals to me.  One actually hears the evidence,
    25        and then the extent of the experience and the expertise of
    26        the witness may well affect the weight, if any, which
    27        attaches to it.
    28
    29        The second one is this, it reminded me of the case of
    30        Summers which was decided in 1963.  In fact, counsel in it
    31        were Mr. Woolf, who is now Lord Woolf, the Master of the
    32        Rolls, and Mr. Wood, who is Sir John Wood, and I remember
    33        it because they were both more senior members of the
    34        chambers I was just starting in.  It was important in those
    35        days when there were a whole lot of trials for people
    36        driving whilst allegedly unfit through drink, because
    37        doctors referred to tables which a British Medical
    38        Association committee had worked out from their own
    39        research dealing with the rate at which alcohol broke down,
    40        so that if you found how much alcohol was in the driver's
    41        blood two hours after the accident you could work back and
    42        find out much he had had in his blood at the time of the
    43        accident.
    44
    45        In the case of Summers a doctor who had not done any
    46        research himself referred to these tables, and the
    47        appellant was convicted and appealed, and lord Parker, who
    48        was then Chief Justice giving the judgment of the court,
    49        said first of all that the doctor, although he had not done
    50        any research in the area himself, had medical knowledge and
    51        was entitled to refer to the tables.  Moreover, he said the
    52        tables were admissible in their own right but not just
    53        because they had been made by a very skilled BMA Committee,
    54        but because they had, over the years, become accepted by
    55        the whole of the medical profession as reliable.
    56
    57        And the reason I mention that, and openly as it were so
    58        that people can see I have it in mind, it may reflect to
    59        some extent on these grey books.  I know it is 33 years ago
    60        and there have been other authorities since.  Because at

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