Day 079 - 27 Jan 95 - Page 72


     
     1        had been represented, long before now I would have sought
     2        the consent of whoever represented you and the consent of
     3        Mr. Rampton to put time limits on witnesses or parts of the
     4        case.  If I had not had that consent I would have probably
     5        imposed the time limits anyway.
     6
     7        I appreciate how difficult it is when you are acting on
     8        your own behalf and I have not, therefore, considered time
     9        limits; for instance, saying:  "You have a day or a day and
    10        a half to cross-examine Mr. Walker".  But if I had imposed
    11        the time limit on counsel or a solicitor representing you,
    12        it would have been a time limit of something of that kind.
    13
    14        You have to repay my understanding of your position by
    15        doing your very best to concentrate on what you really need
    16        to ask questions about, and then getting to the point of
    17        that line of questioning absolutely as quickly as you can.
    18        In fact, if you do that, it will not only help me, more
    19        importantly, from your point of view, it will help you
    20        because the evidence will be much more contained than a lot
    21        of it has been so far.
    22
    23        I do not propose to say any more at this stage.  I do not
    24        find homilies attractive.  I have said something similar in
    25        the past.  What I do ask you to do is spend a bit of time
    26        over the weekend.  You have, obviously, prepared your
    27        cross-examination already, looking at just what you need to
    28        ask Mr. Walker about.  Moreover, in case I ask you on
    29        Monday:  "Now, where are we going now?" preparing
    30        yourselves so you can say, quite concisely:  "It is on this
    31        point and it is relevant for that reason".
    32
    33   MR. MORRIS:  If I can just say that we did expect to be finished
    34        by today but we were completely thrown out by the admission
    35        from the Preston food poisoning outbreak and the cloud that
    36        was erected around that.  That is all I am saying.  It did
    37        take a long time.
    38
    39   MR. RAMPTON:  It took an hour.
    40
    41   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Even if you were right about that, that
    42        cannot have taken more than something like three-quarters
    43        of an hour out of today and yet, apparently, we may have
    44        another day to go.  Now go away, get a bit of rest over the
    45        weekend but, please, go through the exercise I have just
    46        asked you to do.  It will not only help me, I think it will
    47        help you.  We will resume at 10.30 on Monday morning.
    48
    49   MS. STEEL:  I am sorry, there was something else I wanted to ask
    50        about.  Yesterday there was the dispute about matters of 
    51        opinion and whether we are entitled to express a matter of 
    52        opinion or not.  Mr. Rampton said that he was going to have 
    53        some argument on that.  I would like to ask that, if
    54        possible, whether we could have a written argument on that
    55        as soon as possible or something.
    56
    57   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I have forgotten what context that arose in.
    58
    59   MS. STEEL:  About rearing and slaughter of animals,
    60        about whether we were entitled to say that all suffering of

Prev Next Index