Day 253 - 21 May 96 - Page 38
1 unless they have to go in search of someone. Where does
2 Miss Brophy live?
3
4 MS. STEEL: I cannot remember off-hand, but it is somewhere in
5 Cheshire.
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Which town?
8
9 MS. STEEL: Somewhere in Cheshire.
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think you should investigate that. You can
12 borrow my White Book at any time if you want to have a look
13 at it. There is a flag in the top of it for the right
14 page, but I do not think I can order substituted service
15 just to avoid expense. The purpose of personal service is
16 to protect the person who is being served so that one can
17 be sure they have actually got the subpoena before one
18 takes any kind of steps for failure of them to attend in
19 answer to it.
20
21 MS. STEEL: I was going to ask about that. If it is the case
22 that a witness is basically willing to attend would it be
23 all right if we sent it to her and she confirmed she got
24 it, and then we go from there, because it seems like that
25 is the purpose of having served it by hand.
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is, but I really cannot say. I think what
28 you have to find out first of all is where she lives, find
29 what the local County Court is, ring up the County Court
30 office, identify a process server and what find out what
31 the charges are. The other thing is, the date she is
32 coming is quite late in the schedule for this trial and
33 what I would not want to find is that you were under the
34 impression that if you served by post she would come but
35 something happened and she did not come, and we were very
36 close to the end of the scheduled evidence. So, what you
37 may find is that the cost of the process server taken in
38 relation to the expense of bringing her here anyway is not
39 that great, and you have to try and raise it somehow.
40
41 MS. STEEL: Right. While we have the schedule open, I do not
42 have to declare this, seeing as you said we do not have to
43 say when our witnesses are coming, but to be helpful, which
44 we have generally tried to do despite what Mr. Rampton
45 tries to make out, Professor Crawford cannot actually make
46 19th but he is coming back earlier than expected from the
47 States so he is now going to be 17th and 18th that he is
48 listed for.
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Right. Is there anything else short before
51 one o'clock?
52
53 MR. MORRIS: No. There are a few legal bits and pieces we could
54 deal with this afternoon at some stage.
55
56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: How long will they take?
57
58 MR. MORRIS: I was thinking that there are outstanding Civil
59 Evidence Act notices which I would wish to read out, but
60 that does not have to be today.
