Day 253 - 21 May 96 - Page 50
1 obviously the person whose identity was not revealed in the
2 letter and also there might be others as well, we do not
3 know because, as far as we can tell, the Plaintiffs have
4 not made all inquiries.
5
6 The point is that with an interrogatory, although the
7 information may not be directly in their possession, they
8 have got an obligation to make all diligent inquiries
9 relating to it.
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Not of people who are not employed by them
12 surely.
13
14 MS. STEEL: They were employed by them.
15
16 MR. JUSTICE BELL: They are not now.
17
18 MS. STEEL: They employed them to carry out certain acts.
19
20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, but we are talking about now being the
21 time the interrogatory is opposed. That is the relevant
22 time.
23
24 MR. MORRIS: They would have seen the reports. McDonald's have
25 said, and the solicitors have said, that they saw reports
26 and which agents were identified, if not by names but by
27 some kind of identification, so even if they are incapable
28 of finding out the name of their own agents that were
29 hired, then they would have identification details so we
30 know if it is agent X or agent Y that cropped up at
31 relevant times. That would relate to point 2 specifically,
32 if it was obviously a name on a report.
33
34 Can I say that the evidence has already been given by Mr.
35 Nicholson that there were a number of agents, I think he
36 said about four, who remained in the group after the
37 service of the writs and from my inadequate look at the
38 material that we have already got from their agents, it
39 does appear to be that only one of them stayed on after the
40 writs were served, so there could in fact be another 2 or 3
41 agents which have not been named or identified in some
42 way. In fact, there must be at the present way it stands,
43 so, we are entitled to know the names and at what times
44 McDonald's had agents hired to infiltrate
45 London Greenpeace.
46
47 MS. STEEL: If I can just carry on: Mr. Rampton said that
48 because these two witnesses are ours, we know who they are,
49 we can ask them ourselves. Well, actually Michelle Hooker
50 is not our witness. At the moment, only Frances Tiller
51 is. Obviously I have asked her what meetings she
52 attended. She cannot remember but she does know that notes
53 were supplied of the meetings and that the Plaintiffs were
54 getting regular reports, as we have, in any event, heard
55 from Mr. Nicholson, from the agencies as to what was going
56 on at those meetings. Therefore, they have got the
57 information in their possession about which meetings, which
58 agents attended, and how many agents attended, and,
59 therefore, they can quite easily answer an interrogatory in
60 relation to that. Whereas because all we have is memories,
