Day 254 - 22 May 96 - Page 73


     
     1        impossible to do all the things that need to be done in
     2        respect of the witnesses that are coming up and getting
     3        prepared for them and the witnesses whom we have to get
     4        supplementary statements from additionally, and trying to
     5        keep, you know, changing from subject to subject to finish
     6        off the odds and ends.  I mean, I do not know -- it is just
     7         ......
     8
     9   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Look, you have got -----
    10
    11   MS. STEEL:   We do want to do it, but it is just .....
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You have got a week and two days out of court
    14        -- I appreciate you may well have other things to do --
    15        before you come back on the Tuesday after the legal
    16        vacation.  What I really think you have to do, for all
    17        I know they will be very short, but get your supplementary
    18        statements -----
    19
    20   MS. STEEL:  I was not talking about the statements.
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No, but I am talking about that because that
    23        may take time and that has obviously got to be done.  It
    24        might be said that that is the most pressing thing ahead of
    25        the documents.  So, what I really think you have to do is
    26        you have got to get those out and served virtually as soon
    27        as we get back after the vacation.  That is what
    28        Mr. Rampton is asking for and it seems to me -----
    29
    30   MS. STEEL:  We have always said that that was our intention,
    31        anyway.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  OK.  Allowing for that, what it seems to me
    34        is, at the very least, during the break what you have to do
    35        is read through quite carefully Mrs. Brinley-Codd's list of
    36        documents.  Although it is quite long, it does not actually
    37        take a very long time to read through and a lot of the
    38        documents she mentions will immediately mean something to
    39        you.  The question I suggest you ask yourselves, apart from
    40        any other question, is, "Well, look, if we did not admit
    41        that and put McDonald's to strict proof of it, would we in
    42        any way be able to challenge their witnesses when they came
    43        along strictly to prove them", because if the answer to
    44        that is "No" you might just as well admit it in the first
    45        place; you have not really lost anything, and what we have
    46        saved is the calling of unnecessary witnesses.  Of course,
    47        if there is a document which you think is helpful to
    48        McDonald's and harmful to you, and you have very grave
    49        doubts about its authenticity, then different
    50        considerations apply. 
    51 
    52   MR. MORRIS:  I think that is the situation.  I think, for most 
    53        of the -- speaking for myself, I am not bothered about most
    54        of them at all.  It is just that there has been two or
    55        three contentious ones.
    56
    57   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  If you can start that exercise and at least
    58        took quite a number of them and say, "We are prepared to
    59        admit those, either because we positively accept they are
    60        true or because the reality of the situation is if we put

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