Day 270 - 28 Jun 96 - Page 42
1
2 "I spoke to countless men and women by phone or in person,
3 federal beef inspectors all, many working specifically at
4 the Montfort plant. They all testified verbally or
5 submitted written reports".
6
7 Can I pause there. I am not going to read any more because
8 at the moment this is in open court and I object to the
9 rest of it. They all testified verbally or submitted
10 written reports. In answer to the query which your
11 Lordship raised a moment ago, if those written reports were
12 available by the inspectors, then they could be admitted
13 under section 2, because they would be Civil Evidence Act
14 statements by the very people who observed the facts relied
15 on.
16
17 But of course we do not have them. We only have Miss
18 Claufine-Caston's say-so. And then in continuation of that
19 paragraph, she recites what she was told, down to the end
20 of the third paragraph on the second page, my Lord. Then,
21 my Lord, there follow one and a bit paragraphs which do
22 appear to have been based on her own experience. My Lord,
23 I take that down to --
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, let me just catch up. The first
26 complete paragraph on page 2?
27
28 MR. RAMPTON: No. Well, yes, the first incomplete paragraph on
29 page 2 I say is objectionable.
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is all part of the argument in relation
32 to --
33
34 MR. RAMPTON: It is, but beginning with the words in the first
35 complete paragraph, "knowing that McDonald's I called",
36 there is a hearsay report of a conversation, I do not mind
37 about that. Because she then goes on to report, as she is
38 entitled to do under section (2), what she herself actually
39 saw.
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There is no objection to that paragraph?
42
43 MR. RAMPTON: There is no objection to that paragraph. Then
44 there is some irrelevant argy-bargy in the first couple of
45 sentences in the next paragraph, but I do not object to
46 that. Then there is something about her putting on her
47 hard hat and she went away to the plant and saw the
48 shipping manifest. Again, although strictly speaking,
49 where it says, "On the wall in this room were lists with a
50 number of trucks coming from various slaughterhouses at any
51 one time along with the dates of arrival", strictly
52 speaking, again, lists do not prove anything. But I do not
53 object to that. It says, "Included on several of these
54 lists was the name Montfort, the very plant in Nebraska
55 that I had visited". There I put a thick red line because
56 from there on, in my submission, as is apparent from the
57 second half of that sentence, "and where I had recorded
58 most of the inspector's testimony", we get back into the
59 area of an inadmissible account of what she has been told
60 by the inspectors.
