Day 311 - 06 Dec 96 - Page 32


     
     1        indeed.  By and large, when they very occasionally cropped
     2        up I have drawn your attention to them in case you want to
     3        answer them and, in fact, I have done so with regard to
     4        this.
     5
     6   MR. MORRIS:  Yes, I know, and that is helpful.  The point is if
     7        I do not deal with it now  I am not going to-----
     8
     9   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I am not going to let you deal with it now,
    10        we must follow the normal procedure.  You can perfectly
    11        well make a note of this and deal with it next week.
    12
    13   MR. MORRIS:  I just cannot, there is just too much to deal with
    14        and I cannot do it at the time, I cannot deal with it.
    15
    16   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Sit down, Mr. Morris.  If you try you can
    17        deal with it perfectly properly.
    18
    19   MR. MORRIS:  I can't, you know, I am just exhausted with this
    20        case.  I would like to deal with it now while I have it on
    21        my mind.
    22
    23   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I am not going to let you do that.  I do not
    24        accept it.  I want Mr. Rampton to carry on with his
    25        submissions.
    26
    27        The last matter I have was to what extent I can treat
    28        Mr. Clare's evidence as reliable?
    29
    30   MR. RAMPTON:  There is no doubt that he made some errors, the
    31        principal one of which I see is putting Ms. Steel at a
    32        meeting when to all intents and purposes, I entirely
    33        accept, she is in the Outer Hebrides; Barrow, I think it
    34        was.  So much the better for her.  Howsoever, as
    35        your Lordship well knows, because a young man makes
    36        mistakes does not mean that the whole of his evidence needs
    37        to be rejected.  It never does mean that, and the approach
    38        which the Defendants have adopted, not only to his evidence
    39        to but to the evidence of 99 per cent of our witnesses, it
    40        is what I might call the approach which first the year law
    41        student might adopt.
    42
    43        Everybody knows who has had any experience of litigation
    44        that witnesses make mistakes.  You do get, and one has to
    45        accept this, the occasional dishonest witness.  You
    46        sometimes get witnesses who are so unreliable, though
    47        perfectly honest, that one has to say to oneself, 'Well,
    48        frankly I can do without that witness'.  Mr. Clare is one
    49        of those witnesses who made mistakes, and there are lots of
    50        others throughout the evidence in this case, but the reason 
    51        why his evidence is important is, in particular, for that 
    52        one meeting at which Morris admitted to having produced the 
    53        anti-McDonald's material.
    54
    55        The reason why that is relied on, apart from the fact that
    56        it was made many years ago before these proceedings were
    57        issued, is that it chimes exactly with what, unprompted,
    58        outside this case, Mr. Morris said in his Haringey
    59        affidavit.  It is too much of a coincidence to be
    60        dismissed.

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