Day 269 - 25 Jun 96 - Page 30


     
     1        puts to Mr. Crawford.  What I wanted to avoid was counsel's
     2        comment on articles which had not been dealt with by his
     3        own witnesses and upon which Professor Crawford relied
     4        without actually challenging Professor Crawford on the
     5        basis of the articles.
     6
     7   MS. STEEL:  Yes.
     8
     9   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I cannot force Mr. Rampton, nor can you, to
    10        take one line or the other.
    11
    12   MS. STEEL:  No, but I thought that was the reason Mr. Rampton
    13        was recalling the witness.
    14
    15   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Maybe he has had second thoughts about it, I
    16        do not know, but some more water has gone under the bridge
    17        since I made my comment.  I am not resiling from my
    18        comment, in that we have had evidence from Professor
    19        Naismith, Dr. Arnott and now we have had quite a long
    20        detailed further report from Professor Crawford.
    21
    22   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, my Lord, what I undertake I certainly will
    23        not do is to refer your Lordship to any scientific paper
    24        which has not been put to my witnesses or relied upon by
    25        them or put in cross-examination to one of the defendant's
    26        witnesses.  We have already had a vast number and I do not
    27        propose to go through all the previous papers which your
    28        Lordship has seen and which have been spoken to by the
    29        various witnesses to date because then Professor Crawford
    30        would be here until the end of tomorrow, and I personally
    31        want to try and finish him today, if I can.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You must take your own course.  What I am not
    34        prepared to do is look at a medical paper and be led to
    35        attempt to analyze it myself when I have not had any
    36        assistance on it from a witness I treat as being an expert
    37        witness from the witness box.
    38
    39   MR. RAMPTON:  No, I quite agree, and I would not so rash myself
    40        as to attempt it.
    41
    42   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It was because I was concerned that you might
    43        have it in mind to do that, that I said what I did on a
    44        previous occasion.
    45
    46   MR. RAMPTON:  I know.  Professor Crawford, insofar as -- put it
    47        this way, does this recent report really subsume everything
    48        you told us in your previous report?
    49        A.   Mr. Rampton, I do not believe it subsumes anything.  I
    50        believe it is sort of complementary to, if you like.
    51
    52   Q.   I am going to concentrate on this one, if I may.  I want to
    53        start, if I may, with a comment you made a moment ago to
    54        the effect that food which is high in saturated fat and low
    55        in fibre and so on and so forth is unhealthy and to ask you
    56        what you mean by that?
    57        A. Well, I mean that it poses a risk if taken regularly.
    58        It poses a risk to health which the risk to health can be
    59        identified, I think, at the least coronary heart disease.
    60

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