Day 308 - 28 Nov 96 - Page 42
1 The way it looks to me at the moment is that if you do want
2 to address me on the law in addition to any written
3 submissions you would like to put before me, and if you do
4 want to ask me for an opportunity to reply to what
5 Mr. Rampton has written or says in relation to your
6 counterclaim, you should be prepared to do those things the
7 week after next.
8
9 MS. STEEL: Obviously, we have not got the counterclaim
10 argument yet. So that needs to be taken into account.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Very well. We will have to see how it goes
13 on that. By all means, read as much as you can in the time
14 available to you of what is in these bundles. You set
15 about it in your own sensible way, trying to pick what it
16 is important to read first. But, as you are well aware
17 from rulings I have made from time to time this term,
18 I propose to keep to what the normal practice is so far as
19 speeches are concerned, unless there is a good reason to
20 depart from it in this particular case. That means that
21 you have addressed me on all the topics which relate to the
22 claim -- and I am only at the moment foreseeing that
23 I might say, yes, you may address me after Mr. Rampton in
24 relation to counterclaim and matters of the law. But you
25 are not to think, when you have read what, for instance,
26 Mr. Rampton has written on food poisoning, "Oh, well, we
27 want to say something about that", because, for better or
28 worse, our procedures are, as you are well aware from
29 rulings I have made this term, that the Defendants go first
30 and then the Plaintiffs, and then that is it; the judge has
31 to go away and make what he will of it all.
32
33 MR. MORRIS: Can I just say one other thing about the facts and
34 fair comments ---
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
37
38 MR. MORRIS: -- analysis of the fact sheet, which me and Helen
39 were going to do after we finished, and get legal advice on
40 that. So, that is not something that would bother you if
41 it came after we read this, or anything like that?
42
43 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I want you to do is, when Mr. Rampton
44 has finished, I want you to stand up; if you want to
45 address me on certain matters, tell me what they are, and
46 I will say "yes" or "no".
47
48 MR. MORRIS: Right. But can we assume that the fact and fair
49 comment thing is something you want us to do?
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think it would be helpful as part of your
52 submissions on law. So far as what is fact and what is
53 comment, at the moment, the note I have is that the stand
54 you appear to me to have taken so far is that the headlines
55 or subheadlines which come throughout this leaflet, save
56 for when we get to employment, are comment and that the
57 rest is fact, save, perhaps, for one statement at the end
58 of the section on rainforests about "when you bite into a
59 Big Mac", et cetera.
60
