Day 247 - 10 May 96 - Page 69
1 MS. STEEL: I know, but the point is I am not familiar with all
2 the documents that are relevant.
3
4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I just cannot accept that by Tuesday morning
5 -- I am giving you some latitude, anyway, because the
6 alternative is to say that Mr. Nicholson follows directly
7 upon Mr. Howes.
8
9 MS. STEEL: I do not know. I mean, it might seem that
10 everything is going very slowly to you, but it is a great
11 pressure to us. We are trying to get everything organised,
12 we are trying to get everything done in time, but I have
13 kept saying that I wanted that week, the Whitsun week, to
14 prepare for publication. We did have to go ahead with Mr.
15 Carroll and I was not ready for him, and there are some
16 things that I found subsequently that I would probably want
17 to ask him about. The same things are going to arise with
18 Mr. Nicholson. I have not finished looking through the
19 Plaintiffs' original list of documents. I have been there
20 twice and I did tell them I wanted to come back. We are
21 doing our best, but Mr. Nicholson in particular is a major
22 witness. He is an important one; he covers a lot of
23 ground. It is not a simple matter to just, sort of, have
24 him thrown in at short notice and be ready to do it.
25
26 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am going to start Mr. Nicholson on Tuesday
27 morning. I want you to ask as many questions as you can.
28 If you come to a stage where you say you cannot ask him any
29 more, you must be prepared to give me chapter and verse of
30 what the topics are you have still got to cover and why you
31 are not prepared to do it; because it is not of interest to
32 me as to who prepared your submission on the application
33 for leave to amend to alleged leave and licence which very
34 considerably involves Mr. Nicholson, or potentially does
35 so. The fact is you spent a considerable amount of time --
36 I am not saying it was a moment too long -- but a
37 considerable amount of time laying out your argument on
38 that. You were clearly well prepared on it, whether with
39 the help of someone else or not.
40
41 So far as the occasion when he says he saw you handing out
42 the leaflet in question, there is no dispute you were there
43 on the day, and you ought to be able to put to him any
44 challenge (if there is one) as to what he says he saw you
45 do. We cannot go on losing too many days. We have sat
46 three days this week. Monday was a public holiday. We
47 kept Wednesday free, presumably with some preparation in
48 mind because Mr. Preston could not attend. I did not say
49 put Mr. Nicholson in then. I am not saying put Mr. Preston
50 in on Monday afternoon. It is a day and a half probably
51 when he could have begun to give his evidence before
52 Tuesday morning. But it is making a mockery of the theory
53 of a steadily proceeding case to say that he should not
54 begin to give his further evidence on the morning of
55 Tuesday, the 14th.
56
57 MS. STEEL: Can I say, I do not think that it is making a
58 mockery because -----
59
60 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is not for you to judge. We will resume
