Day 128 - 24 May 95 - Page 54


     
     1   Q.   Were you asked for copies of those minutes?
     2
     3   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Do you know whether they still exist?
     4        A.  Certainly recent copies still exist, yes.
     5
     6   Q.   Up to when -- that is since when?
     7        A.  Certainly, the last two to three years.
     8
     9   Q.   The last?
    10        A.  Two to three years.
    11
    12   MS. STEEL:  So that could be roughly how long the Company would
    13        keep those types of documents?
    14        A.  Those I would certainly be able to access quite
    15        quickly.  They would be in my own files.
    16
    17   Q.   Does the Company keep the copies of the High Levels
    18        magazine and the Crew News it has archives of?
    19        A.  I believe that they are kept, yes.
    20
    21   MS. STEEL:  I am not quite sure about how to ask the question.
    22
    23   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  The Task Force meetings are quarterly you
    24        say, are they?
    25        A.  Yes, they are.
    26
    27   MS. STEEL:  I am not quite sure how to ask about who asked
    28        Mrs. Barnes about these documents.
    29
    30   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Remind me, has there actually been any
    31        direction, either guidance let alone order, as to discovery
    32        of those?
    33
    34   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, that is what I was asking Mr. Atkinson.
    35        I do not believe there has.  The Defendants have made, of
    36        course, a myriad of applications of a different kind.
    37        I pay no attention to those until such time as your
    38        Lordship says that I must make he discovery.  When that
    39        order is made, then the enquiries are made.  I have no
    40        recollection of an order, direction or application relating
    41        to Health and Safety Task Force, or whatever it is now
    42        called, minutes generally, nor indeed any specific date or
    43        occasion -- none at all.
    44
    45   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  There would be two stages, would there not?
    46        If their existence is known and they are relevant, one
    47        would expect them to be listed unless a view was taken that
    48        their contents were not relevant.
    49
    50   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, that is what I meant by what I said 
    51        earlier.  At the moment I see no relevance at all. 
    52 
    53   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Let us suppose we go past that stage.  The
    54        next question is they are then not listed, either because
    55        their existence has not been tumbled to or because they are
    56        known of but it is thought their contents are not
    57        relevant.  It does not, for the purpose of this discussion,
    58        matter which it is, but the Defendants get to know of them
    59        as they do now and they may make, I do not know whether
    60        they can work it, if they are for the last two or three

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