Day 149 - 06 Jul 95 - Page 07


     
     1        paying for an urgent transcript; there would not be an
     2        urgent transcript, and you would just have to wait for your
     3        three weeks.  Barnett Lenton, therefore, no doubt -- and,
     4        it seems to me, quite properly -- think it is only right to
     5        see if McDonald's have any objection since, were it not for
     6        the fact that McDonald's are paying the commercial rate in
     7        the first instance, you would not be able to get them for
     8        œ20.  Is there any objection to that, Mr. Rampton?
     9
    10   MR. RAMPTON:  To what, my Lord?
    11
    12   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  To the Defendants having their copies at the
    13        œ20 rate, but sooner rather than later.
    14
    15   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, my Lord.  There is every objection to that.
    16        If the Defendants will undertake not to misuse them, we
    17        will go on paying for them fully on the daily basis that
    18        they have at the moment.  Since they have not been willing
    19        to give that undertaking, I want to put every obstacle in
    20        the way of them and their cronies against the misuse of
    21        these transcripts outside court.
    22
    23        I am not in the least bit interested in interfering with
    24        the Defendants' conduct of their defence.  That would be
    25        against my interests and against your Lordship's interests
    26        and against the interests of justice.  I am not the least
    27        bit interested in that.  What I am concerned about is that
    28        this flow of disinformation should be stemmed, so far as it
    29        is within our power to stem it.  If they get a wodge of
    30        transcripts after three weeks, because they can find the
    31        œ20 per copy, there is nothing I can do about that.
    32        Happily, that will make the task of those who have to put
    33        together these disinformation documents a bit harder than
    34        it would be if they got them on a daily basis.  But I am
    35        certainly not going to agree that they should have them at
    36        the cheap rate on a daily basis.
    37
    38   MS. STEEL:   To be honest, I am quite astounded by what
    39        Mr. Rampton has said.  We have already said that we are not
    40        distributing the transcripts.  This was supposed to be a
    41        matter of copyright, or something like that.  If we
    42        purchase copies -- I mean, as far as we are concerned,
    43        there is absolutely no reason why we should not let people
    44        know what is going on in court, in any event.  But,
    45        certainly, if we purchase copies ourselves, there is
    46        absolutely nothing the Plaintiffs could do to stop anything
    47        we wanted to do with the transcripts.  I am not, by that,
    48        admitting to anything that Mr. Rampton is alleging.
    49
    50        The only possible reason why the Plaintiffs could be 
    51        objecting to this is to affect our conduct and defence of 
    52        our case in court, because we are going to get the 
    53        transcripts anyway if we raise the money.  The only
    54        difference is going to be that we are not going to get them
    55        in time to use them for cross-examining the witnesses in
    56        the witness box, so that we can actually help move the
    57        court along by saying:  "Well, you said such and such at
    58        line such and such on day such and such", rather than
    59        having to do it from our notebook or our memories.
    60

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