Day 274 - 04 Jul 96 - Page 09
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2 MR. JUSTICE BELL: After the end.
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4 MR. MORRIS: That there would be some period when the witnesses
5 have finished where we are able to go back and concentrate
6 on our papers and consider that matter that you have raised
7 there.
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9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I have told you I am not making a ruling, but
10 it is definitely a statement of intent, and, as you know,
11 whether you accept it or not, I am anxious to help you on
12 points which I think you may not have perceived, because
13 you are representing yourselves, where I think there is
14 some risk that you may be labouring under a
15 misapprehension. And that has happened in a number of
16 contexts in this case. By the same token, I have more than
17 once said that I am very reluctant to give you advice in
18 case it turns out to be misplaced and you are misled by
19 it.
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21 What I would suggest in this case is that you must do your
22 very best by Monday morning to be able to stand up and say,
23 with regard to as many documents as possible on the 18th
24 March list, and especially the ones which go to the heart
25 of things, like percentages of recycled paper, nutritional
26 contents, printouts about labour figures or details of one
27 kind or another, whether you admit them or not. When you
28 are doing that, I would not be at all surprised if certain
29 documents which you want to rely on do not come back to
30 mind. And, as they do, write them down.
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32 The other thing is this; there has got to be some
33 coordination between you and Ms. Steel. It is technically
34 possible that you could agree a document with Mrs.
35 Brinley-Codd and that document would therefore be
36 admissible in the case as between you and the first and
37 second plaintiff, but if Ms. Steel had not agreed it, it
38 has not been approved and it was not admissible in its own
39 right, it was not admissible in the case between her and
40 the first and second plaintiff. But one has only got to
41 state the theoretical possibility to realise what an absurd
42 situation you would be in.
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44 So what you have got to try and do is both of you be of the
45 same frame of mind as to what is admitted and what is not.
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47 MS. STEEL: I do not want to say anything really about that, but
48 I just wanted to actually -- well, since it was mentioned
49 this morning, I had an E-mail from Professor Crawford and
50 he says that I was right, and that he says the peppers
51 explain the difference between the McDonald's meal and the
52 homemade. The figure was correct. The difference was beta
53 carotene, because he was thinking of it in terms of
54 retinol.
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56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: When we have a break, ask if that can be
57 photocopied and I would like to see it.
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59 MS. STEEL: There are some other comments on it which are to do
60 with closing speeches, and things like that.
