Day 046 - 04 Nov 94 - Page 49


     
     1        Miss Foot, who permanently astounds me at the way she gets
     2        things down.
     3
     4        What concerns me is this:  I have looked through the
     5        transcript or some of the transcripts, and where Miss Foot
     6        has done her best, but what she gets down is not obviously
     7        English, just for a couple of words or something like that,
     8        clearly someone either has a recollection or listens to the
     9        tape, and it is corrected for the transcript.
    10
    11        Where what goes down on the Case View transcript is
    12        perfectly good English and will appear to make perfectly
    13        good sense, but is not what was actually said, i.e.,
    14        "important" for "healthy", or -- this was trivial -- but
    15        yesterday afternoon, I said "an institution like
    16        McDonald's", and it goes down as "institute", that is a
    17        totally trivial matter but, just as an example, that is
    18        sometimes not corrected.  I can see why, because to the
    19        person who is perfecting it, it is English, it makes sense
    20        and, therefore, there is no need to listen to the tape.  I
    21        have this faint concern.  We can get "healthy",
    22        "important", "institution", "institute", but I hope that
    23        some check is actually being made ultimately.
    24
    25   MR. RAMPTON:  I have certainly noticed one or two things --
    26        I cannot remember what they are -- when I have been reading
    27        them, only in a random sort of way, I am afraid -- I have
    28        not been systematic about it -- where, actually, it is
    29        quite important, because, although the sense is English, it
    30        is sometimes the contrary to what I remember having said.
    31
    32   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  All I am doing is raising it at the moment.
    33        You must do the same.  If you see something in the
    34        transcript which you think is somewhere near what you said
    35        or a witness said, but you do not think is right, you can
    36        query it, and ultimately, if it is thought to be important,
    37        it can be checked back against the central tape.  Do you
    38        understand?
    39
    40   MR. RAMPTON:  Your Lordship and I have just received a joint
    41        rocket from Miss Foot because, apparently, everything is
    42        checked against the tape and it is not, as it were, brushed
    43        over.
    44
    45   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  It is totally trivial, and I am not worried
    46        about this, but I definitely said "institution" and it has
    47        gone down as "institute".  Perhaps I was speaking
    48        indistinctly.  I am not concerned that that was inaccurate;
    49        it is merely to check that-----
    50 
    51   MR. RAMPTON:  I have to say that I think that where, from the 
    52        context, the sense of the sentence, though it makes 
    53        perfectly good English, is taken in isolation, it is
    54        plainly wrong.
    55
    56   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You can see that a "not" must have been
    57        missed out, or something of that kind.
    58
    59   MR. RAMPTON:  Overall, I am not sure that it makes a lot of
    60        difference.  I have made my own corrections as I have gone

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