Day 254 - 22 May 96 - Page 73
1 impossible to do all the things that need to be done in
2 respect of the witnesses that are coming up and getting
3 prepared for them and the witnesses whom we have to get
4 supplementary statements from additionally, and trying to
5 keep, you know, changing from subject to subject to finish
6 off the odds and ends. I mean, I do not know -- it is just
7 ......
8
9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Look, you have got -----
10
11 MS. STEEL: We do want to do it, but it is just .....
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You have got a week and two days out of court
14 -- I appreciate you may well have other things to do --
15 before you come back on the Tuesday after the legal
16 vacation. What I really think you have to do, for all
17 I know they will be very short, but get your supplementary
18 statements -----
19
20 MS. STEEL: I was not talking about the statements.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, but I am talking about that because that
23 may take time and that has obviously got to be done. It
24 might be said that that is the most pressing thing ahead of
25 the documents. So, what I really think you have to do is
26 you have got to get those out and served virtually as soon
27 as we get back after the vacation. That is what
28 Mr. Rampton is asking for and it seems to me -----
29
30 MS. STEEL: We have always said that that was our intention,
31 anyway.
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: OK. Allowing for that, what it seems to me
34 is, at the very least, during the break what you have to do
35 is read through quite carefully Mrs. Brinley-Codd's list of
36 documents. Although it is quite long, it does not actually
37 take a very long time to read through and a lot of the
38 documents she mentions will immediately mean something to
39 you. The question I suggest you ask yourselves, apart from
40 any other question, is, "Well, look, if we did not admit
41 that and put McDonald's to strict proof of it, would we in
42 any way be able to challenge their witnesses when they came
43 along strictly to prove them", because if the answer to
44 that is "No" you might just as well admit it in the first
45 place; you have not really lost anything, and what we have
46 saved is the calling of unnecessary witnesses. Of course,
47 if there is a document which you think is helpful to
48 McDonald's and harmful to you, and you have very grave
49 doubts about its authenticity, then different
50 considerations apply.
51
52 MR. MORRIS: I think that is the situation. I think, for most
53 of the -- speaking for myself, I am not bothered about most
54 of them at all. It is just that there has been two or
55 three contentious ones.
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If you can start that exercise and at least
58 took quite a number of them and say, "We are prepared to
59 admit those, either because we positively accept they are
60 true or because the reality of the situation is if we put
