Day 014 - 20 Jul 94 - Page 59


     
     1        and time again one has had medical articles quoted which,
              when you look at them, do not actually say what the
     2        witness says they said.  This is no allegation against
              Professor Wheelock; it is just force of experience.
     3
         MR. RAMPTON:  I say, with some confidence, that this came in by
     4        a side wind, so far as Professor Wheelock is concerned,
              because the reference is really Dr. Arnott's one.  I say
     5        it with some confidence having read every single paper of
              the 24 or so attached that he has attached to his
     6        statement, but your Lordship's proposition does not hold
              good in this particular case.  I can make efforts to try
     7        to find that Finnish paper.  It is not, so far as can I
              tell, referred to directly by Dr. Arnott in his report.
     8
         MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No.  The consequence really is this, that in
     9        so far as an article is -- I am not going to make a
              generalisation, but in so far as Professor Wheelock has
    10        referred to those two papers to support a view which he
              himself has expressed, I am unlikely to attach any weight
    11        to the reference to the paper unless the paper has been
              seen.
    12
         MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, that raises this difficulty, that almost
    13        all these learned papers upon which Dr. Arnott, for
              example, relies themselves refer to or rely on anything
    14        from 10 to 60  -----
 
    15   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, I am not seeing it as the same
              situation.  Maybe I have misunderstood you.  There has
    16        been a specific reference to a specific paper.
 
    17   MR. RAMPTON:  I know that, but my problem, this is not meant in
              the least bit disrespectfully, is one of logic.  If
    18        Professor Wheelock says that he has read something and it
              says such and such, and your Lordship is not inclined to
    19        attach any weight to it without seeing the piece of paper
              he refers to, the same argument must apply by parity of
    20        reasoning to any statement contained in any of these
              written papers which make reference to other papers which
    21        are not included in the material before the court, which
              in its turn totally invalidates what the witness who
    22        relies on the learned papers says in his report.
 
    23   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I think there may be that difficulty, if one
              is going to be strictly logical about it, but somewhere
    24        there comes in a matter of judgment as to where one is
              going to be absolutely strict about things, and where one
    25        is going to say:  No, that is good enough.  My feeling at
              the moment is that if there is a specific reference to a 
    26        specific paper dealing with a specific sample, it ought to 
              be produced. 
    27
         MR. RAMPTON:  I will readily concede the point on the grounds
    28        of judgment.
 
    29   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I remember when I was at the Bar the
              irritation one felt when all of a sudden an expert witness
    30        -- which again is not a reference to Professor Wheelock,
              but one did not know oneself whether he was being

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