Day 070 - 20 Dec 94 - Page 52
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2 MS. STEEL: -- the worry, that they may contact other people
3 from the company and say: "Well, what shall I say about
4 this?"
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6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Raise it in the future because you may
7 find if a blanket warning is given to every single witness,
8 you may with regard to one witness or another regret it.
9 You may positively want them to make some enquiry.
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11 As each witness comes (and I anticipate you are
12 particularly concerned with those who are working for
13 McDonald's rather than the independent witnesses) you raise
14 it with me. If you want to raise it in the absence of the
15 particular witness, all you have to say to someone in the
16 McDonald's team: "Will you please ask Mr. X not to come
17 into court for the moment because we want to raise
18 something with the Judge?" Do you understand? That is the
19 normal form if you are worried about it.
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21 MR. MORRIS: If we move on then, the Defendants' pleadings,
22 I think the general impression from everybody is that it
23 will be useful if we included the main elements from our
24 witnesses' statements.
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26 MR. RAMPTON: No, my Lord. It is not certainly my general
27 impression. I would hate the Defendants to waste any time
28 fiddling about with the pleadings. If they wish to do it
29 in the Court of Appeal or something like that in due
30 course, so be it. I think it would be a complete and utter
31 waste of time for the Defendants to spend time fiddling
32 with the pleadings and transferring this and that
33 allegation from the witness statements to the pleadings.
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35 What I am concerned about is that matters are not raised
36 during the course of this case which can be found neither
37 in the pleadings nor in the witness statements. I abhor
38 the idea that the Defendants should spend any time during
39 the next three weeks doing that as opposed to getting ready
40 for the next term's trial.
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42 MS. STEEL: As we understood it, Mr. Rampton wanted us to do it.
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44 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think it may have been something I said
45 because, you remember, I said if as we go along things crop
46 up which are in the statements and not in the pleadings,
47 and you feel able just to say a couple of words so
48 I register that this is a point which is in a statement of
49 one of your witnesses but not in the pleadings, so I can
50 make a note of it and it does not pass me by.
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52 MR. MORRIS: It would certainly save us a lot of work if we did
53 not do it.
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55 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You do not ----
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57 MR. MORRIS: It is quite a task.
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59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Accept Mr. Rampton's reassurance about that
60 and I am not calling on you to do it. If there are
