Day 087 - 10 Feb 95 - Page 21
1 be applied to that statement of Dr. Mitchell Cohon", and we
2 do not have to say he is beyond the seas. He is clearly an
3 American physician.
4
5 MS. STEEL: I have just noticed that this is from the Journal of
6 Medicine. Surely that would mean that we were entitled to
7 cross-examine witnesses on that basis anyway.
8
9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. You see, this is the difficulty.
10
11 MS. STEEL: Witnesses have been cross-examined on the basis of
12 other ---
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, they have.
15
16 MS. STEEL: - scientific documents.
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That was the area I was talking about. If
19 you have a microbiologist in the witness box, or you have
20 got a physician who puts himself forward as an expert in
21 haemorrhagic colitis or abdominal diseases of one kind or
22 another, and you are asking him a matter of scientific
23 expertise in relation to that, it might be -- I do not know
24 -- that Mr. Rampton would say, "He is happy to follow the
25 same procedure as has been followed with the doctors we
26 have had so far on nutrition".
27
28 I think, in order to see whether he has any and, if so,
29 what objection, you have got to say what are the parts you
30 particularly want from it. If you say, "We want the whole
31 lot", maybe Mr. Rampton -- I am not encouraging him to do
32 so -- it would be very easy if he just said, "Oh well, I do
33 not mind it being used in cross-examination. Let us see
34 where we get to." But if one looks at the very first
35 sentence in the first half of 1982, two outbreaks of an
36 unusual gastrointestinal illness etc.; what is that? Is
37 that something Dr. Cohon is saying of his own direct
38 knowledge, or is it hearsay or what?
39
40 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, of course with that one has absolutely no
41 idea at all. One does not know even if it is Dr. Cohon who
42 is saying it. There are 12 authors of this article of whom
43 Dr. Cohon is the last listed. As I have said, one notices
44 from that that, at any rate, some of the information on
45 which this article is based has come, as one would expect,
46 from secondary sources in the places concerned.
47
48 My Lord, I do not know whether I would object to this
49 document technically or not. All I am doing is using it as
50 an example of what I propose, as a submission of principle,
51 that for all Mr. Morris' wish to have it free and easy he
52 is not going to, and if there are documents which he wishes
53 to refer to which I object to, then, in my submission, he
54 has got to satisfy the requirements of the law before he
55 can do so. That certainly applies to the Preston report.
56 Whether it applies to this I do not know because I have not
57 really looked at it. I have compared it with the statement
58 of Mr. Rummel. There does not seem to be much water
59 between them. So, if necessary, when it comes to it,
60 I will ask your Lordship to rule on the admissibility of
