Day 240 - 24 Apr 96 - Page 47
1 after that, subject to Mr. Rampton having time to -----
2
3 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I do have something to say about that.
4 I, like your Lordship, hope that the evidence will be
5 finished by the end of June, or at least the first week of
6 July. If I get a completely new witness on -- and this is
7 what is likely to happen -- 30th May, dealing with a
8 restaurant whose identity has not yet been revealed to us
9 -- he is no longer a McDonald's employee so there is no
10 reason on earth why it should not be revealed to us if
11 Mr. Morris knows it -- we are not going to have time to
12 deal with it.
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I suggest I do is I add to say the
15 deadline -- it rather puts you at risk, Mr. Morris, but
16 there we are; several months have gone by; I am not
17 suggesting it is your responsibility if a witness has not
18 come up with something -- but I will say the deadline for
19 service is 31st May or at least 28 days before the end of
20 the evidence. It is a rather strange situation. What that
21 means is you take a risk that if he is not served until
22 late May, the evidence finishes within 28 days of that time
23 and you cannot call him.
24
25 What about Tom Caulfield?
26
27 MR. MORRIS: That is something which I have been chasing up for
28 a couple of months now. He was one of the people involved
29 in the ---
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I remember who he was.
32
33 MR. MORRIS: -- dispute. It was really a simple matter of
34 getting -- that, obviously, will be a Civil Evidence Act
35 notice in any case and it is something which has already
36 been canvassed, so it should not be difficult for the court
37 to deal with it. It is just a question of me getting a
38 brief statement off him. I did speak to him directly and
39 he said he would do one, but I have not chased it up. In
40 fact, I forgot about it but I will chase it up.
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I will make the same order in respect of
43 him. I am not going to say anything else about scheduling
44 because I want to hear what the position is about the
45 London Trial Centre first.
46
47 MS. STEEL: There is something that I wanted to raise ---
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
50
51 MS. STEEL: -- which is that I presume you will have seen the
52 things that the Plaintiffs sent to us last weekend which
53 include further voluntary particulars of the Plaintiffs'
54 case. Now, they say they are relying on -- have you seen
55 those?
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
58
59 MS. STEEL: They say they are relying on various matters in
60 respect of the issue of malice in the main action, the
