Day 253 - 21 May 96 - Page 46


     
     1   MR. RAMPTON:  It is a correct assessment of the situation for
     2        your Lordship to say:  "For all I know there may be no
     3        further witness statements forthcoming", but in that case,
     4        I am bound to say, I doubt whether I have any obligations
     5        in the matter at all except in relation to the occasions
     6        identified by the Defendants.
     7
     8        Can I put it this way:  Suppose this were a pre-trial
     9        application for leave to amend, your Lordship grants leave
    10        on what we say is a somewhat sketchy basis advanced in
    11        support of the amendment. What  immediately follows from
    12        that in the normal course of litigation is a request for
    13        particulars, each and every occasion relied on, what did
    14        the people do which you say encouraged a continuation of a
    15        moribund campaign?
    16
    17   MS. STEEL:  We did it all when we made the application.
    18
    19   MR. RAMPTON:  No. I am sorry, they did not do it, my Lord.  What
    20        they did was to point so some things that my witnesses had
    21        said.  That said, if the answer to the request for
    22        particulars is "cannot give any", then that is the
    23        beginning and the end of their case and they are not
    24        entitled to fish for a case by asking for names and for
    25        dates of which they are not aware.
    26
    27        This is why I complain that I have had nothing positive
    28        from their side.  I do not even have an account from them
    29        or from any of their witnesses of any of the things that
    30        six people whose identities they know are alleged to have
    31        done in aid of the continuation of the campaign.
    32
    33        Leaving aside entirely the question of legal professional
    34        privilege, I am very loathe to volunteer information, as
    35        ever, to enable the Defendants to try to find a case which
    36        on their own material, and in the light of the very
    37        considerable material they have got from my witnesses and
    38        from my documents they are not presently able to make.
    39
    40        They should be able, in the light of the information they
    41        have got, that is the identity of 6 of the inquiry agents,
    42        a vast number of dates--  I say a vast number of dates, it
    43        is a large number of dates.  It runs all the way through
    44        from October 1989 until September 1990----
    45
    46   MR. MORRIS:  January 1991.
    47
    48   MR. RAMPTON:  No. On  the evidence September 1990, they have
    49        specific dates, they have specific descriptions, they have
    50        accounts of who was at the meetings.  They should by now be 
    51        in a position to make a case that this that or the other 
    52        identified agent did this that or the other act in aid of 
    53        the continuation of the campaign which otherwise would have
    54        foundered or died a natural death.
    55
    56        I have heard nothing from their side to make me think they
    57        know anything to support what they have pleaded, and until
    58        such time as I do, I am very unwilling simply to spoon feed
    59        them with further information which they do not presently
    60        have to see if they can find something to support a case

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