Day 249 - 14 May 96 - Page 66
1 point is we are entitled to know, with whatever available
2 information is there, the times that the agents were no
3 longer hired by McDonald's. We have heard from
4 Mr. Carroll, in fact, that it was longer than January 1991,
5 and it is evidence, and there seems to be a dispute about
6 it. So, I mean, the point is it can be left to us, as it
7 always is, and we can go away and mean time we have to
8 prepare everything in this case and attempt to, no doubt,
9 draft-up letters which will be ignored and then application
10 for discovery which will be lost, then possibly an inquiry
11 for further and better particulars which may or may not be
12 successful, and may be too late for cross-examining
13 witnesses.
14
15 So, we are just saying that this information surely must be
16 relevant, and we want the Plaintiffs to be ordered, in one
17 way or another, to provide the information that we are
18 asking. That is all we are saying. We would like the
19 advice of the court on that. Unless, of course, the
20 Plaintiffs have something to hide I do not see why they
21 should be uncooperative.
22
23 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, even supposing that the information
24 which Ms. Steel and Mr. Morris want is relevant, they are
25 only entitled to it in so far as it is volunteered by the
26 Plaintiffs, whether in a letter or a disclosed witness
27 statement, or given in evidence from the witness box or
28 contained in a discoverable document. The Plaintiffs are
29 not prepared to volunteer it. Mr. Nicholson has given his
30 evidence about it, and for all I know I may hear more from
31 subsequent witnesses.
32
33 This application arose from Mr. Morris suggesting that the
34 documents passing between Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, the
35 Plaintiffs' solicitors, and the firm of private
36 investigators concerned relating to payments of their fees
37 should be disclosed. They seem to me to be privileged
38 documents and until such time as the Plaintiffs waive that
39 privilege they are not discoverable, whether they would be
40 relevant once seen or not.
41
42 I will hear any evidence which comes from either party in
43 relation to when private investigations into the activities
44 of London Greenpeace carried out on behalf of the
45 Plaintiffs ended, but I have no power to order the
46 Plaintiffs to disclose it if he chooses not to do so, and,
47 in particular, no power in the light of professional
48 privilege, to order discovery of the documents which
49 Mr. Morris has in mind.
50
51 MS. STEEL: Now, you said in your statement that with the
52 exception of Alan Clare you did not meet the private
53 investigators, and that at the time you did not know the
54 number used, their identity, names or gender until after
55 the service of the writs, and that you learned the
56 information for the first time in 1991, and some in 1992.
57 What was it that you found out about the private
58 investigators at that stage by way of names, identities,
59 genders, and how many?
60 A. The only names I learned are those that come into
