Day 118 - 01 May 95 - Page 84
1 difficulty we may face in relation to that is this, that or
2 the other so one is steering him in a certain direction.
3
4 MR. MORRIS: If it could be said we should get a copy of those
5 references, because, to be honest, I cannot remember all
6 the times when someone said: "You should ask Mr. Beavers
7 about that" or whatever. So I think if he is going to have
8 that benefit then we should have that as well.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, that is just the preparation of
11 McDonald's case on their behalf. If they want to give them
12 to you with a view to you seeing what areas you may be
13 keyed up with that is entirely a matter for them, but it is
14 just preparation of the case. It saves him having to read
15 all the transcripts and fish around for himself.
16
17 MS. STEEL: The only thing I would say is that if witnesses have
18 said: "You ought to ask Mr. Beavers about that", presumably
19 that would be because Mr. Beavers is the person who knows
20 about that, so he should not need to read the transcripts
21 to find out about it.
22
23 MR. MORRIS: We are a bit concerned because it is open to abuse
24 in that he could be forewarned of the specific things that
25 the Plaintiffs are concerned about, that he should gen up
26 on, when in fact, as Ms. Steel said, he should know about
27 all those relevant matters anyway.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not think it will do any harm and I have
30 absolutely no objection to you taking the same course with
31 any one of your witnesses who is going to be recalled. We
32 do not even have the gist of the problem with someone who
33 is not going to be called yet because you can talk to the
34 witness, but one has just to judge whether it will distort
35 the evidence a witness is likely to give, and I cannot see
36 it doing so in the case of Mr. Beavers.
37
38 MR. RAMPTON: No more my Lord than it would have done if he been
39 sitting in court throughout the trial and had taken a note
40 whenever his name was mentioned, which he would be
41 perfectly entitled to do.
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I honestly cannot see it doing any harm in
44 this case so by all means follow that, but obviously there
45 will be no further comment apart from saying, in effect,
46 you need not read the whole transcripts just these bits.
47
48 MR. RAMPTON: They will probably be yellow-flagged.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: We will resume at 10.30.
51
52 (The court adjourned until the following day).
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