Day 073 - 13 Jan 95 - Page 48
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: He is employed by a supplier to McKey.
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4 MR. RAMPTON: He is employed by a slaughterhouse called Midland
5 Meat Packers. He is a young man in middle management,
6 I would say. I do not know that he has ever given evidence
7 before. He has prepared himself to give evidence on
8 23rd January. If there were any merit in what Mr. Morris
9 was saying, then I should certainly be amenable to a
10 suggestion that he might be postponed so that the kind of
11 compromise, agreement or co-operation of which Mr. Morris
12 speaks might be forthcoming.
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14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It may be that it does not matter, but would
15 it be logical for him to come before Mr. Walker or the
16 other way round?
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18 MR. RAMPTON: It does not make any difference. Mr. Walker is
19 the head of McKey's. He has graciously (I say that because
20 he is a busy man, he is the head of the business) cleared
21 his diary for the last three days of that week, if
22 necessary, starting on Wednesday. Then we have the two
23 Scottish academics who I do not suppose they will take four
24 days, though one never knows. Then Mr. Kenny and then some
25 blanks after that to be filled.
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27 My Lord, I make, if I may, the following observations.
28 First of all, Mr. Morris is entirely wrong to suggest that
29 the combined topic of food safety or food poisoning and
30 slaughtering and animal welfare is a new topic. It began,
31 in fact, in July with Dr. Gregory -- Professor Gregory as
32 he now is -- it continued with Mr. Oakley. It then
33 continued with Dr. Gomez Gonzales for a period I think of
34 four days. I should that Dr. Gonzales was preceded by a
35 weekend and two days off, the 12th and 13th December, to
36 enable the Defendants to prepare for Dr. Gonzales. There
37 are for those two combined subjects one thick and two thin
38 pink files and two thick and one thin yellow files. Since
39 we began the vacation a day early on 21st December 1994,
40 there have, in fact, been roughly three weeks time in which
41 to prepare for the continuation of that topic.
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43 Nobody could pretend that preparation for the environment/index.html">litter
44 question required more than, frankly, about a morning of
45 anybody's time. Mr. Hopkins has been here back and forth
46 (I feel sorry for him for that reason) on a number of
47 occasions. Presumably ever since they cross-examined
48 Mr. Mallinson, the Defendants have been prepared to examine
49 Mr. Hopkins if they had to. My Lord, that means there is
50 really no reason why in the remaining four days which they
51 are likely to have, Thursday 19th, Friday 20th, and the
52 weekend before the 23rd, even allowing for a day off, there
53 is no reason why they should not be ready to deal with
54 Mr. Chambers on Monday, 23rd January.
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56 There is also this to be taken into account, the
57 cross-examination of Dr. Gregory about his observations at
58 Midland Meat Packers was, what shall I say, sketchy in the
59 extreme. It may be that the reason is there is not
60 actually very much that can be put to Mr. Chambers that
