Day 265 - 19 Jun 96 - Page 71
1 conversation was reported to us was the 10th May.
2
3 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Thank you. What do you want to say?
4
5 MS. STEEL: Well, I want to say I totally refute that and if
6 Mr. Rampton wishes to rely on that. Then I suggest he
7 should get an affidavit from Michelle Hooker. I telephoned
8 Miss Hooker, asked her if she was prepared to make, asked
9 her, told her that I wished to speak to her because we were
10 interested in calling her as a witness in this case. She
11 denied to me that she was Michelle Hooker which is why we
12 said the other day that we have been unable to trace her.
13 The person I spoke to said repeatedly that it was not her
14 and she did not know what I was talking about. She kept
15 asking me for more and more detail about what I was talking
16 about. So I said to her various things which had been
17 observed at the time in terms of her having a black car
18 which obviously she used to park outside the meetings at
19 London Greenpeace. I did not make any threats or any
20 veiled threats or any enquiries about her parents health or
21 anything like that. She did start talking to me, saying
22 that she was disabled or something and she going into
23 hospital. So she could not speak to me, because she said
24 she was interested in speaking to me again, but said that
25 it could not have been her in London because she was
26 disabled and so could not have got up here. So I did ask
27 her, "Well, do you have the a sister or somebody who it
28 might have been?" But I did not make any enquiries about
29 general health, certainly not in the context that Mr.
30 Rampton is trying to put on them of, in terms of being a
31 veiled threat.
32
33 I completely refute what he is saying and I think that if
34 he wants to rely on that conversation, he should get an
35 affidavit from Miss Hooker because as far as I am
36 concerned, if she swears one to the effect that Mr. Rampton
37 has just given, she will be lying through her teeth. It
38 sounds like the story has actually come through several
39 people, so it may have got distorted in the meantime
40 anyway. I do not know whether that is what she said or
41 that is what somebody's interpretation was of it, or what.
42
43 In terms of whether or not the information is relevant, it
44 is not personal information. It is a question of who Mr.
45 Claire was employed by at the time. It is standard
46 information for any witness, particularly in a case where
47 he was employed in the capacity in which he is now giving
48 evidence. If terms of people being photographed on--I am
49 sorry if I am going too fast.
50
51 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
52
53 MS. STEEL: In terms of people being photographed on leaving
54 Court, actually quite a lot of witnesses have been
55 photographed or filmed. There is a, there are several kind
56 of books, documentaries and what have you in the offing for
57 which that kind of thing might be kind of helpful for the
58 picture of well, it is just normal practice, really.
59
60 The point is that whatever the Plaintiffs are trying to
