Day 002 - 29 Jun 94 - Page 54
1 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are they witnesses whose statements have
been served?
2
MR. RAMPTON: Yes. They are Civil Evidence Act witnesses. It
3 may have been loose terminology by Mr. Morris. If they
are not going to be live witnesses, it does not matter at
4 all. My Lord, the other thing.
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I will ask about that in a moment.
6 MR. RAMPTON: The other preliminary thing I wanted to mention
was "Jungle Burger". If there is an intention by the
7 defendants to rely on the "Jungle Burger" as evidence of
the truth of its contents, whether by the attendance of
8 Mr. Peter Heller who made it, or by some other means, then
in advance of that, and before ever I should consent to
9 its being relied upon, we should require a full, unedited
tape and transcript of interviews of the witnesses
10 concerned, with, so far as possible, full particulars of
their identities, status and where interviews were given.
11 At the moment what we have are simply short transcripts of
little pieces of edited interview shown in the programme.
12 One knows from bitter experience in this field of the law
how untrustworthy that material can be. What one needs to
13 see is the whole of the unedited interview with a
transcript.
14
My Lord, then the principal matter which I wish to raise
15 -- I preface it by saying that the submissions of Miss
Steel and Mr. Morris were littered with
16 misrepresentations.
17 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. I do not think that now is the moment,
if I may say so. You had a point in relation to
18 discovery?
19 MR. RAMPTON: I will deal with that alone. There was a
repeated allegation, one right at the end of Mr. Morris'
20 submissions, repeated references to what is alleged to
have been a cover up. We believe that we understand the
21 law on discovery and, with your Lordship's guidance, we
have observed our obligations under that law.
22 ^
the whole exercise has been governed, not just at a
23 distance by me, but by a very experienced firm, and very
well respected firm, in the City, by Barlow Lyde and
24 Gilbert. It is our obligation to make discovery of
documents which are relevant to the issues. We have taken
25 a broad view of that in this sense, that we have not
confined our consideration of that obligation to the
26 pleadings, but have extended it to the unpleaded
allegations which appear in the witness statements.
27
On the other hand, having been not entirely confident that
28 we could trust the defendants with the material which we
have disclosed, though we have taken a broad view of the
29 range of relevance, once we have decided where the
guillotine fell, we have been fairly strict, which is the
30 reason why in some cases a document which contains some
relevant material and some material which is not relevant,
