Day 171 - 11 Oct 95 - Page 45


     
     1        short notice.  Because of the letters that have been
     2        disclosed and the other issue regarding his conversation
     3        with Paul Preston he probably will take more than ten
     4        minutes, but I should not think it should take more than
     5        three-quarters of an hour or something.
     6
     7   MR. RAMPTON:  What would not take more than three-quarters of an
     8        hour?
     9
    10   MR. MORRIS:  His evidence.
    11
    12   MR. RAMPTON:  In total?
    13
    14   MR. MORRIS:  Probably.
    15
    16   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Let us see how we go on that.  The other
    17        matter is this:  Then you want to read some Civil Evidence
    18        Act witnesses?
    19
    20   MR. MORRIS:  I thought it would save time at a later date if we
    21        could read them out tomorrow.
    22
    23   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Let me ask Mr. Rampton about that.
    24
    25   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, it is completely unnecessary.  It is a
    26        total waste of time.
    27
    28   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Why should he not, if it is a public hearing,
    29        read the evidence of his Civil Evidence Act witnesses?
    30
    31   MR. RAMPTON:  Because your Lordship has indicated, and it is the
    32        law, that it is quite sufficient for your Lordship to read
    33        them and then they become public documents and he can
    34        distribute them as and when he wants.  They constitute
    35        evidence in the case once that has happened.
    36
    37        If Mr. Morris tells your Lordship which ones he relies on
    38        at any particular time and wants your Lordship to read,
    39        that is fine by me.  If he indicates which they are to me,
    40        there are some of them which contain a good deal of
    41        inadmissible hearsay, I am not sure in a judge alone case
    42        I mind very much about that.
    43
    44   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  At the moment, unless you say that I have no
    45        choice about it, since it is a public hearing, I think that
    46        either party should, if they wish to, be entitled to read
    47        out their document, their witness statement.  That would
    48        dispose of the argument anyway, unless you have an argument
    49        that that is quite wrong, because it seems to me it is for
    50        me to decide whether the time is well spent or not. 
    51 
    52        There is another aspect of it.  I can see that in the case 
    53        of some anyway of the Civil Evidence Act witnesses on
    54        either side, but certainly in respect of some of them which
    55        are proffered by the Defendants, you might well argue that
    56        this or that part is not admissible.  If that is so, it
    57        seems to me just as well that you should say so as Mr.
    58        Morris comes to the particular witness and I can rule on it
    59        in however summary a form, and then we will have read that
    60        which appears to me to be admissible but not that which,

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