Day 274 - 04 Jul 96 - Page 05
1
2 I stress that the plaintiffs may not want to agree, it
3 seems to me, that sheet of paper unless the defendants
4 agree their analyses, and the defendants may not be
5 prepared to agree the plaintiffs' analyses unless the
6 plaintiffs agree the sheet which Professor Crawford
7 referred to. But it is all totally unresolved at this
8 moment.
9
10 Document 21, this is in the list under yellow volume 5,
11 Mr. Fairgrieve, his appendices, the same comments apply as
12 to visiting frequency, but both sides have referred to
13 them, but query whether they are admissible at the moment.
14 And just as a final example, and I stress that these are
15 only picking a document here and there, in pink 12,
16 documents 56 to 52, which include, if my recollection is
17 right, various computer printouts as to crew figures,
18 including young persons working 96 hours plus and matters
19 of that kind, all those matters are completely up in the
20 air and I foresee very real prospects of having to ignore
21 them altogether and saying there is no evidence as to who
22 worked what hours because the printouts have not been
23 agreed.
24
25 Having said all this, I must leave the next steps to the
26 parties themselves. The concerns which I have expressed
27 about admissibility of the documents and contents are
28 concerns which I have expressed on a number of occasions in
29 the past and I cannot keep on restating them. I am
30 repeating them now, because we are reaching the end of the
31 calling of the evidence, and the one thing I can and will
32 do at some stage in the pretty near future is say that is
33 it, that is all the evidence I am going to accept.
34
35 The other reason, as I have already indicated, why I am
36 making this statement now is because I have had second
37 thoughts about whether I should allow any party to call
38 evidence to prove documents after this month. In my view,
39 we should return to the matter on Monday morning before Ms.
40 Steel gives evidence or Mr. Morris, if it is decided that
41 he should go before Ms. Steel, if they do choose to give
42 evidence. If the defendants are not prepared then to admit
43 documents on Barlow Lyde & Gilbert's list, either because
44 Ms. Steel or Mr. Morris say expressly that they will not
45 admit the documents or documents in question, or because
46 they are still not ready to comment on whether they will
47 admit or not, the plaintiffs should, in my view, be
48 prepared to prove the documents which they want to rely on
49 as soon as the defendants' evidence is completed, or to say
50 well, we will abandon those documents, if the defendants
51 will not agree them, we will not prove them and they will
52 not have any evidential status at all for anyone to use, or
53 to argue in due course that this document or that document
54 is admissible in its own right by some route or other.
55
56 I would like Mr. Rampton therefore and Mr. Atkinson to tell
57 me on Monday morning, once I have given Ms. Steel or
58 Mr. Morris an opportunity to say anything which they wish
59 to say about the list, I would like Mr. Rampton or
60 Mr. Atkinson to tell me then which documents on the Barlow
