Day 181 - 01 Nov 95 - Page 69
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. If Mr. Alimi is the 4th and 5th and he
3 can come on the 6th, there may be obvious sense in that.
4 But find out if he can do any day or days between then and
5 Thursday the 27th. At the moment, I am putting Mr. Alimi
6 with a query on the 4th and 5th, and I am putting Mr. Coton
7 with a query on the 6th, just so that I remember to keep
8 him in mind.
9
10 I think it is important, Mr. Rampton, even if all that it
11 involves is Mr. Atkinson sitting down with a dictating
12 machine, that we get any request for Further and Better
13 Particulars in respect of Mr. Coton's statement out as soon
14 as possible.
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16 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, it is going to be this afternoon, in
17 fact.
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19 MR. MORRIS: What is the legal position with the request for
20 Further and Better Particulars of a witness statement,
21 because I do not think it has ever come up in this case
22 before?
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24 MR. RAMPTON: No, it has not.
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26 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, it is just a phrase I used. I did not
27 mean to use it in its technical sense.
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29 MR. MORRIS: Mr. Rampton did use that phrase.
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31 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I did for this reason, that, as your
32 Lordship knows, I said at the beginning of the case, and
33 I have faithfully adhered to it, I would not require
34 additional allegations which appeared in the witness
35 statements to be specifically pleaded as part of the
36 defence; I would treat them as such. By the same token, it
37 must follow that if the witness statement contains
38 insufficient detail to enable me to deal with what is said,
39 it must be the subject of a request for Further and Better
40 Particulars in whatever form, and in this case it will be
41 by letter. There is no formality about a request for
42 particulars. It has always been possible to ask for
43 particulars by letter, and that is what we propose to do in
44 this case.
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46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There is that point, and it occurred to me
47 also that what we are trying to avoid is Mr. Coton coming
48 into the witness box, either in examination-in-chief or
49 cross-examination coming out with further detail which you
50 then say we would like an opportunity to check on before
51 you complete your cross-examination, which means that
52 Mr. Coton has to go away and then come back at some later
53 stage, which is not only more helpful to me but I am sure
54 Mr. Coton would much appreciate getting his evidence over
55 and done with in one day.
56
57 MR. RAMPTON: It did not happen in Mr. Pearson's case. As your
58 Lordship observed, there is an awful lot in that which
59 I had had no notice, really because he is not a witness of
60 fact and much of what he said was entirely predictable
