Day 164 - 26 Sep 95 - Page 21
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2 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, my Lord, I believe your Lordship should look
3 at it. "If a party who is required by rule 9 to serve such
4 a notice as is therein mentioned ... offers", this is in
5 (c), "inspection at a time or place such that, in the
6 opinion of the Court, it is unreasonable to offer
7 inspection then or, as the case may be, there, then,
8 subject to Rule 13(1)", which I do not think applies in
9 this case, except that it is the provision that inspection
10 has to be necessary in the opinion of the court, "the Court
11 may, on the application of the party entitled to
12 inspection, make an order for production of the documents
13 in question for inspection at such time and place, and in
14 such manner, as it", that is the court, "thinks fit."
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16 So, your Lordship thought it wholly unreasonable for us to
17 offer the Defendants the opportunity for inspection during
18 a seven week period when the court has not been sitting,
19 the Defendants having declined that opportunity, why, then
20 your Lordship could make an order under 24 r. 11(1). But,
21 unless ordered to do so, I will maintain the offer which
22 was made on 7th August. The Defendants were then and are
23 still at liberty to come and inspect the document at
24 Barlows' offices. Beyond that, unless I am ordered to do
25 so, we shall not do anything.
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27 No explanation has been offered by either of the Defendants
28 for why during the last seven weeks they have not taken
29 advantage of the offer to inspect.
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31 MS. STEEL: Just on that, which I was going to say anyway,
32 I did inform Mrs. Brinley-Codd before the end of the last
33 term that I would be away over part of August. I did not
34 get back until I think it was 21st or 22nd, I am not sure,
35 so I certainly did not see the letter until that time.
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37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is that August?
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39 MS. STEEL: August, yes. Following that, I think we had,
40 particularly Mr. Morris, had protracted correspondence with
41 the Plaintiffs to persuade them to provide us with a copy.
42 Given that I had several other problems that I had to sort
43 out at the time which were related in a letter to the
44 Plaintiffs, I did hope that this could be sorted out by
45 them providing us with a copy which we could look at home
46 in our own time when we had spare time, rather than having
47 to set aside specific days and travelling all the way over
48 to their offices. As I say, basically, we hoped it would
49 be resolved by the provision of a copy that we could take
50 copies from, if necessary, if the Plaintiffs did not want
51 to photocopy it.
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53 MR. MORRIS: Maybe if I can just make conclusionary remarks on
54 this, the problem does not seem to be one of cost, the
55 problem seems to be one of them not wanting us to see the
56 security section. I do not particularly want to see the
57 security section, to be honest. Therefore, I think the
58 Plaintiffs should be asked or ordered to enquire if a copy
59 can be made available without that section, i.e. there is a
60 spare copy, that section can be removed and then it can be
