Day 168 - 03 Oct 95 - Page 30
1 taken. We do not have a legal team to do it for us.
2
3 Thirdly, that if Mr. Morris had not found out the name or
4 that that specific allegation in Mr. Logan's statement
5 related to Mr. Richards, then I am sure that we would have
6 just put to the witness: "What Mr. Logan says here, did
7 you ever do that?" If he says "No", "Are you aware of any
8 other managers doing that?" in which case, effectively, we
9 would have asked exactly the same question, and I am sure
10 if would have been allowed -- that that would be the way it
11 would be dealt with.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What troubles me is here is nothing to do
14 with those arguments. It is apparent that when he came
15 into court this morning, Mr. Morris must have had these
16 extra details but no notice of them has been given.
17 Several times last term and already this term I have had
18 things to say about that.
19
20 MS. STEEL: We are doing our best, but unless we have extra
21 time in order to contact all the witnesses and then check
22 out the possibilities -----
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You must raise the matter with me. It is not
25 any answer that you are doing your best if, in fact, your
26 best is not enough. I am not going to allow any new
27 matters of fact which relate to this witness to be put to
28 him unless you have given notice to the other side in
29 advance.
30
31 MR. MORRIS: The Plaintiffs also have a lot of the information
32 in their possession about what was going on in the Bath
33 store which is relevant to this case, and they have not
34 disclosed a single document. They are under an obligation
35 to disclose those documents before we cross-examine their
36 witness, which we are doing now, and our witness.
37
38 I think that that is equally important, but that has been,
39 you know, put to one side because, OK, they have got the
40 arduous task of searching for documents, all that kind of
41 stuff, despite their massive legal team and all the
42 documents being in their possession. You know, we just
43 have to do the best we can based on what scant information
44 we are capable of getting to make sure the issues are
45 raised and the witness can deny them if they are not true.
46
47 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That has nothing to do with the point I am
48 raising at the moment. You have not done the best you can
49 because you must have come into court this morning with
50 this information without giving any intimation to the other
51 side that you had it.
52
53 MR. MORRIS: I have a lot of scrappy notes written in the
54 margins of Mr. Richards' statement which I took down from a
55 phone call. I have not even had a chance to look at them
56 except to go through the names which I was asked to do,
57 which I did.
58
59 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If this happens in the future, you must write
60 them down on a sheet of paper, make a photocopy and hand it
