Day 149 - 06 Jul 95 - Page 37
1 hall was too small and was over-crowded, paragraph 34; that
2 the cutting boards were worn and not easily cleanable,
3 paragraph 35; that the implements in the boning hall were
4 not properly sterilized, paragraph 36, and that there was a
5 minced meat shift during the night which constituted a
6 human health hazard, paragraph 37. None of that was put to
7 Mr. Bennett in cross-examination.
8
9 My Lord, the inferences which we draw from that chronology
10 and those events are these, that the Defendants had at the
11 time when they cross-examined Mr. Bennett or before all or
12 most of the detailed information which in due course
13 Ms. Hovi came to provide in the witness box, that for some
14 reason or another, it may have been deliberate, it may have
15 been negligence, I know not what, was surpressed.
16
17 Last, that after Mr. Bennett had given evidence and during
18 the course of the 14 days which elapsed between his
19 evidence and Ms. Hovi's evidence, they deliberately chose
20 not to disclose to us what it was that Ms. Hovi would say
21 in detail. From that we draw the inference, or we make the
22 submission, rather, that the Defendants' suggestion that
23 the detail which Ms. Hovi gave all of a sudden, as we saw
24 it, when she came to give evidence was merely a response to
25 Mr. Bennett's evidence is, frankly, bogus.
26
27 My Lord, it may be that your Lordship will feel that it is
28 quite unnecessary (and I could understand this) to make any
29 kind of finding about the Defendants' motives or conduct.
30 The fact is that as a consequence of what happened, without
31 attributing blame, first, that the Plaintiffs had no
32 opportunity to deal with Ms. Hovi's detailed information by
33 way of evidence-in-chief of their own. These things, or
34 some of them, were first adverted to in a rather neutral
35 and oblique way in cross-examination of Mr. Bennett.
36
37 The second consequence is that because no notice was given
38 to us between the end of Mr. Bennett's evidence and the
39 beginning of Ms. Hovi's we had no proper opportunity,
40 indeed no opportunity at all, to obtain detailed
41 instructions on those matters before I came to
42 cross-examine Ms. Hovi.
43
44 My Lord, whether or not it be right -- we would assert that
45 it was -- that this amounts to a blatant piece of chicanery
46 on the Defendants' part, we would submit that the
47 Plaintiffs must now in justice be allowed the opportunity
48 denied them by what has happened to cross-examine Ms. Hovi
49 in a way which would have been possible if we had proper
50 prior notice of her evidence and, second, to call evidence
51 in rebuttal. I make this remark in passing -----
52
53 MS. STEEL: I thought (and I have just checked it and I am
54 correct) that Mr. Rampton is completely wrong about his
55 assertion that we deliberately told Ms. Hovi not to make a
56 supplementary statement. All she said when he asked her:
57 "They advised you not to make a supplementary statement
58 including all that material?" She says: "I was not
59 advised on the possibility of making it", which is not the
60 same as being specifically told not to make one.
