Day 017 - 25 Jul 94 - Page 67
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I see.
2 MS. STEEL: -- so he could talk about it in his opening
speech, and the file of indices, that was because we had
3 been given a new set of indices on that morning, but we
had only been given one between the two of us. So
4 I wanted a second set delivered that day so we had them
before the trial started.
5
MR. JUSTICE BELL: I was thinking of saying I will take that
6 attendance note out and hand it back, if there is no
significance to it, but I have noted on it what you have
7 said about it.
8 MS. STEEL: Thank you. The second thing is -- we wanted to
raise this in open court so it is on the record -- to ask
9 Mr. Rampton to stop interrupting us during
cross-examination, in order to tip off the witnesses and
10 alert them as to what we are aiming at.
11 When we were asking witnesses whether they agreed with
statements made elsewhere, for example, in the fact sheet
12 that is complained of, they may very well give a different
answer if they know what particular document we are
13 referring to.
14 We have taken legal advice on this. We have been told
there is no obligation on us to actually hold the leaflet
15 up and say: "This is what we are referring to" but we are
entitled to just ask general questions about whether they
16 would agree with the statement or whether they would think
it was OK to make a statement.
17
The effect of the interruptions is two-fold. As I say, it
18 alert the witnesses as to what we are getting, and also it
distracts us from our line of questioning, which we feel
19 is a bit unfair -- well, quite unfair considering we are
unexperienced. We end up getting, as I say, distracted
20 and confused. We feel it ends up taking more court time
than if we just carried straight on with the questions
21 without interruptions.
22 On Friday Mr. Rampton even gave an answer for the witness
before the witness had spoken. We feel that a senior
23 lawyer such as Mr. Rampton ought to know better than
this. We are asking him to curb the interruptions and, if
24 he will not do so, at a later stage we are going to
formally seek the protection of the court over this.
25
MR. JUSTICE BELL: You have my protection anyway, in that if
26 I saw anything I thought was wrong happening, I would
interrupt. I must say that I think Mr. Rampton has
27 interrupted very rarely in cross-examination compared with
my general experience in litigation. I have to say I do
28 not think he has done so unfairly up to now.
29 My own experience is that one tries to keep interruptions
of anyone else's cross-examination to a minimum. One does
30 interrupt from time to time. Sometimes it turns out that
the interruption was well founded, sometimes it turns out,
