Day 118 - 01 May 95 - Page 83


     
     1        should, because my reaction when she gave evidence was that
     2        she dealt with a lot of topics and facts of which no
     3        warning was given in her statement.  You say yourself one
     4        wants to get at the truth and therefore I am inclined to
     5        allow McDonald's to call evidence on those matters of which
     6        fair a full warning was not given in the statement.  It is
     7        not quite the same situation as you may have been in from
     8        time to time where a McDonald's witness may have covered a
     9        new area which was not in their statement, for the simple
    10        reason by and large your witnesses are coming after the
    11        McDonald's ones.  So provided you have enough time to cope
    12        with it when your relevant witness comes into the witness
    13        box you can deal with that.  You are not in an evidence in
    14        rebuttal situation.
    15
    16        I will tell you what I am minded to do because the date you
    17        have given is about a month from today, and in a case which
    18        is lasting this long, if I say, "No 14, days rather than 28
    19        days", it is just a judge trying to throw his weight around
    20        without any big difference in the overall span of the
    21        case.  I have sympathy with the fact that it needs to be a
    22        solicitor who is fully acquainted with the case who does
    23        the proofing, and although it might be thought that you
    24        have the services of a large firm of solicitors to assist
    25        you the reality is that you really need someone who is au
    26        fait with the conduct of case.
    27
    28        So what I would say is that it certainly should not be any
    29        later -- and this is just an expression of view -- than the
    30        date which you have given, and if it can be done in the
    31        next couple of weeks or so rather than the next four weeks
    32        or so I would greatly appreciate it, and I think it would
    33        serve everyone's interest in the case.
    34
    35   MR. RAMPTON:  We will take every due notice of those
    36        observations of your Lordship and do it as soon as we
    37        possibly can.  It may mean Mrs. Brinley-Codd has to go to
    38        Bristol rather than court 35 for a day or so, but perhaps
    39        she would not mind that anyway.
    40
    41        My Lord, the other thing is this, and I raise this though
    42        strictly speaking I am not sure I need to.  As your
    43        Lordship knows Mr. Beavers is coming back to give evidence
    44        next Tuesday.  He would, of course, we believe, be entitled
    45        to read the transcripts of all the evidence that has been
    46        given in the meantime just as if he had been sitting in
    47        court.    However, in order to make his task easier it has
    48        been suggested that without anything being said to him,
    49        whether orally or in writing, those parts of the transcript
    50        where somebody has said: "Well you had better ask 
    51        Mr. Beavers about that", should be highlighted or flagged, 
    52        so he does not have to read the whole of every transcript. 
    53        I believe we would probably be entitled to do that anyway
    54        but I did not want to do it without first asking whether
    55        your Lordship thought it was an all right thing to do, so
    56        long as nothing is written on the transcript or said to
    57        him.
    58
    59   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I can see no harm in that.  The harm would be
    60        if someone said: "Please see page 26 of the day 80", the

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