Day 265 - 19 Jun 96 - Page 71


     
     1        conversation was reported to us was the 10th May.
     2
     3   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.  Thank you.  What do you want to say?
     4
     5   MS. STEEL:   Well, I want to say I totally refute that and if
     6        Mr. Rampton wishes to rely on that.  Then I suggest he
     7        should get an affidavit from Michelle Hooker.  I telephoned
     8        Miss Hooker, asked her if she was prepared to make, asked
     9        her, told her that I wished to speak to her because we were
    10        interested in calling her as a witness in this case.  She
    11        denied to me that she was Michelle Hooker which is why we
    12        said the other day that we have been unable to trace her.
    13        The person I spoke to said repeatedly that it was not her
    14        and she did not know what I was talking about.  She kept
    15        asking me for more and more detail about what I was talking
    16        about.  So I said to her various things which had been
    17        observed at the time in terms of her having a black car
    18        which obviously she used to park outside the meetings at
    19        London Greenpeace.  I did not make any threats or any
    20        veiled threats or any enquiries about her parents health or
    21        anything like that.  She did start talking to me, saying
    22        that she was disabled or something and she going into
    23        hospital.  So she could not speak to me, because she said
    24        she was interested in speaking to me again, but said that
    25        it could not have been her in London because she was
    26        disabled and so could not have got up here.  So I did ask
    27        her, "Well, do you have the a sister or somebody who it
    28        might have been?"  But I did not make any enquiries about
    29        general health, certainly not in the context that Mr.
    30        Rampton is trying to put on them of, in terms of being a
    31        veiled threat.
    32
    33        I completely refute what he is saying and I think that if
    34        he wants to rely on that conversation, he should get an
    35        affidavit from Miss Hooker because as far as I am
    36        concerned, if she swears one to the effect that Mr. Rampton
    37        has just given, she will be lying through her teeth.  It
    38        sounds like the story has actually come through several
    39        people, so it may have got distorted in the meantime
    40        anyway.  I do not know whether that is what she said or
    41        that is what somebody's interpretation was of it, or what.
    42
    43        In terms of whether or not the information is relevant, it
    44        is not personal information.  It is a question of who Mr.
    45        Claire was employed by at the time.  It is standard
    46        information for any witness, particularly in a case where
    47        he was employed in the capacity in which he is now giving
    48        evidence.  If terms of people being photographed on--I am
    49        sorry if I am going too fast.
    50 
    51   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes. 
    52 
    53   MS. STEEL:  In terms of people being photographed on leaving
    54        Court, actually quite a lot of witnesses have been
    55        photographed or filmed.  There is a, there are several kind
    56        of books, documentaries and what have you in the offing for
    57        which that kind of thing might be kind of helpful for the
    58        picture of well, it is just normal practice, really.
    59
    60        The point is that whatever the Plaintiffs are trying to

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