Day 169 - 04 Oct 95 - Page 62
1 may be important, it is obviously in your own interest to
2 say that the past is water under the bridge and at least
3 get to the office to have something of a look at it. But
4 I do not want to enter back into the argument.
5
6 MS. STEEL: I am not trying to enter back into an argument.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is my suggestion. So far as involvement
9 in the campaign is concerned, I have said this in another
10 context in the past: I have to rule on issues as they
11 arise on the material which is then available to me. If
12 and when you give evidence on the topic, obviously my state
13 of information advances much further. I will listen
14 carefully to everything you say in your evidence-in-chief
15 and to the answers you give in cross-examination and
16 anything you wish to say thereafter in what would be the
17 equivalent of re-examination. I will know much more about
18 the situation than I do now, and I will not consider myself
19 in any way bound or shackled by the terms of the ruling I
20 have made in the past.
21
22 MS. STEEL: OK.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Never be too proud to change my mind, even if
25 I had made it up on any particular topic.
26
27 MS. STEEL: OK.
28
29 MR. MORRIS: Just something -- could I just ask one question?
30 First, how does it happen just when we go in the witness
31 box ourselves, if we do, or whatever -- say, for example,
32 Helen goes first, do I question her first and then
33 Mr. Rampton cross-examines her?
34
35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I think I have told you about this before but
36 there is absolutely no harm in repeating it.
37
38 A time comes when you will have the opportunity to give
39 evidence. In fact, when we get to your defence cases, we
40 have to be a little more formal about the order of events
41 because you are separate Defendants and separate Plaintiffs
42 in your own Counterclaim, and Ms. Steel just by chance is
43 higher on the list of the original Defendants than you were
44 so she comes first.
45
46 The way it is going to work out is that Mr. Rampton will
47 have called all of his evidence on various topics and then
48 a stage will be reached when I will say to Ms. Steel, "Do
49 you want to give evidence yourself and call any further
50 witnesses in support of your case?" If she wants to both
51 give evidence herself and call witnesses in support of her
52 case, it is better that she gives evidence first normally
53 and then calls her witnesses, though, subject to anything
54 Mr. Rampton says, I do not think one need be particularly
55 formal about that. But, in any event, let us suppose that
56 Ms. Steel chooses to give evidence herself. She goes into
57 the witness box, she is sworn or affirms, and then she
58 tells me what she wants me to hear, not in argument but on
59 matters of fact and opinion and anything that is relevant
60 for her to say.
