Day 149 - 06 Jul 95 - Page 48
1 MR. MORRIS: We will have to check.
2
3 MS. STEEL: I know strictly speaking we are not entitled to
4 come back on what was said about Mr. Bone ----
5
6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not going to stop you completely, but it
7 must be very, very short because otherwise the argument it
8 is like a ping-pong match.
9
10 MS. STEEL: Really I just wanted to say something because we are
11 being accused of deliberately stifling the evidence to
12 sabotage the Plaintiffs' case or something along those
13 lines.
14
15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Mr. Rampton said at the end he did not
16 suppose it would make any difference. I am not in my
17 ruling, whatever I find, find it necessary to dispose of
18 this matter by making any such finding against you. The
19 bottom line, I do not mind saying in my mind, is what at
20 the end of the day is most likely to enable me to get to a
21 right conclusion about what goes on at Jarretts.
22
23 MS. STEEL: Which obviously would be easier to do ----
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not mind saying at the moment that it
26 seems to me that whatever the argument about calling
27 evidence in rebuttal is concerned, that is my first
28 consideration. I do not know if Mr. Bone does come and if
29 his evidence at the end of the day does conflict
30 significantly with Ms. Hovi whose evidence I will prefer.
31 If Ms. Hovi comes back I have more to hear from here.
32 I have not even seen Mr. Bone. I do not know what sort of
33 chap he is like at all. What I have to reflect on is: Am
34 I more likely to get it right if I hear Ms. Hovi again and
35 Mr. Bone, or if I do not hear any more from Ms. Hovi I do
36 not hear Mr. Bone at all. So, unless you have some
37 brilliant new point you have thought of, I suggest you
38 leave Ms. Hovi and Mr. Bone.
39
40 MS. STEEL: I do want to say something about Mr. Rampton saying
41 we were deliberately withholding information. I want to
42 make the point that he said something about we must have
43 found out this, that or the other because we were asking
44 Mr. Bennett questions in cross-examination. I want to
45 point out that Ms. Hovi was sitting behind us for some of
46 the time Mr. Bennett was giving evidence. She was passing
47 us questions to ask him. It is not a matter of we had all
48 these things up our sleeve which we knew about and were
49 deliberately withholding. Also I just want to reiterate
50 the point about Ms. Hovi did not say at all when she was
51 asked about this that we told her not to make a
52 supplementary statement.
53
54 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I have that in mind.
55
56 MS. STEEL: We did not discuss supplementary statements at any
57 time. The only other thing, not on the Bone/Hovi dispute,
58 I just wanted to clarify about the counterclaim documents,
59 because we did not go into what is listed on the
60 Plaintiffs' letter. I wanted to check, did you say the
