Day 311 - 06 Dec 96 - Page 26


     
     1   MR. RAMPTON:  Well, sensibly when all the evidence is closed,
     2        certainly.
     3
     4   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  All the evidence is closed now.
     5
     6   MR. RAMPTON:  Perhaps we should have applied for leave earlier.
     7        As a matter of practicality and justice it does not make,
     8        we would suggest, any difference at all.  The report was in
     9        the Defendants' hands, it was in the witness box with
    10        Mr. Russell and he was cross-examined upon it as though it
    11        were his evidence.  If it now becomes his evidence because
    12        your Lordship gives leave believing that it does not do any
    13        injustice to the Defendants because nothing has happened by
    14        that process which makes a disadvantage to them which is
    15        irretrievable, then your Lordship would take the report of
    16        his evidence and the Defendants' cross-examination as their
    17        cross-examination on his evidence.
    18
    19   MR. JUSTICE BELL: You say it does not apply to any other
    20        reports.  Mr. Morris said it did in the case of Mr.
    21        Bishop.  What is the position there?
    22
    23   MR. RAMPTON:  I cannot remember off hand, I would have to check
    24        this; Mr. Atkinson might do it.  But my recollection is
    25        that Mr. Bishop said that he either had checked the report
    26        or, in fact, he typed it himself.
    27
    28   MR. JUSTICE BELL: I would like you to able to help me on that at
    29        some stage.
    30
    31   MR. RAMPTON:  Yes, certainly.  It is important.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Because if I have to deal with the question
    34        of leave or not, then I have heard whatever Ms. Steel or
    35        Mr. Morris may say, I want to know how far it extends
    36        beyond Mr. Russell and 26th April.  It may not make a jot
    37        of difference.  If, for instance, I thought that the
    38        balance of probabilities was that when Mr. Russell made his
    39        statement in the middle of 1993, which was three years
    40        rather than six years after the evening in question, he
    41        could remember and therefore it was honest and reliable
    42        when he said the statement was true, I can forget the
    43        report.
    44
    45   MR. RAMPTON:  Of course, because he has affirmed that in the
    46        witness box.
    47
    48   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  In any event, Mr. Russell's evidence in the
    49        witness box, regardless of what was in the report, was that
    50        Mr. Morris in court was the same person who was there on 
    51        26th April, that he came in fairly late, that by 
    52        controlling proceedings -- that was on the last page of the 
    53        report -- he meant that Mr. Morris's voice was heard the
    54        most, the one thing he could not remember without looking
    55        at the report was him speaking on the topic of the Moscow
    56        visit.
    57
    58   MR. RAMPTON:  No, but that is in the witness statement, of
    59        course.
    60

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