Day 090 - 16 Feb 95 - Page 16
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
2
3 MS. STEEL: Yesterday Mr. Pattison gave a view of what he
4 thought Dr. Gregory thought about gasing by carbon dioxide
5 and it did not tally with what Dr. Gregory said in court.
6 Do I need to put that to the witness or will it just be
7 assumed that what Dr. Gregory said in court is what he
8 believes?
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think the reality of the situation, unless
11 any challenge is made by Mr. Rampton to Mr. Gregory, which
12 I would have thought is very unlikely, he called him to
13 give evidence, that if there is a difference of
14 recollection of fact including, for instance, what was said
15 or what was done between two witnesses, if it is important
16 to decide which is more likely, then I will have to do
17 that.
18
19 Where two witnesses express an opinion and their opinions
20 conflict, again I may have to decide which I prefer. Where
21 a witness, let us say, Mr. Gregory, says what he thinks and
22 then another witness, say, Mr. Pattison, says what he
23 thinks Dr. Gregory thought, I will accept Dr. Gregory's
24 evidence of what he thought rather than another witness's
25 evidence of what he thought he thought.
26
27 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, since at the end of case your Lordship
28 may feel that perhaps the most important element of this
29 animal welfare question is not quite so much what
30 incidental suffering may be caused to animals in the
31 process, though that is obviously a feature of it, but
32 perhaps, more important, what are the attitudes and beliefs
33 of the people who are responsible for supplying McDonald's
34 with their product. If a challenge is to be made to
35 Dr. Pattison's (who is responsible for this at Sun Valley)
36 integrity and his creditability about what he said in
37 relation, for example, to his belief about whether this
38 method is humane or not, then it should be made, in my
39 respectful submission, whether by reference to Dr. Gregory
40 or any other material, I do not know, but I think it
41 should.
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I do not know -----
44
45 MR. MORRIS: We do not accept Mr. Rampton's analysis of the
46 situation.
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Suppose Dr. Gregory said that he thought a
49 process caused an animal suffering, suppose another witness
50 later said: "I do not think it does cause suffering" and
51 also said: "I do not think Dr. Gregory thought that it
52 caused suffering", you need not bother with the third of
53 those because I am likely to accept from Dr. Gregory what
54 he thought. But if you challenge the opinion of the
55 witness, if the witness himself did not think that it
56 caused suffering, you put it to him. You can perfectly
57 well put it to him, if you want, by saying: "Well,
58 actually Dr. Gregory thought that this caused suffering".
59 Do you see what I mean?
60
