Day 084 - 07 Feb 95 - Page 06
1 legal situation, maybe the decision could be suspended
2 while we can prepare an argument or something on that.
3
4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You can either ask me to make a decision
5 there and then in which case if you got further information
6 which you thought helpful, you could raise it again, or you
7 could say: "I do not want you to decide now because I want
8 to wait until such and such happens".
9
10 MR. MORRIS: I suppose it does not matter if you decide now
11 because we can always with new information -----
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If, for instance, I refused your application
14 on the basis that there was no evidence that ---
15
16 MR. MORRIS: Right.
17
18 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- and then later it turned out that there
19 was evidence that, you could obviously ask me to reconsider
20 it.
21
22 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, while there is a conference going on on
23 my right, I am getting a little bit concerned about
24 Mr. Atherton. He is in the office in East Finchley,
25 I think. He is on the end of a telephone. If he is to get
26 here in time for 2 o'clock, we really have to tell him now
27 so that he is not late.
28
29 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Whether we go on with the application for
30 further discovery now and, if so, how long for is a matter
31 for the Defendants, although I will obviously at an
32 appropriate moment ask your view about it.
33
34 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, with respect, it is not entirely a matter
35 for the Defendants.
36
37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No.
38
39 MR. RAMPTON: I do have a view about it. My concern really is
40 this, as I think I said yesterday, we should, if it is
41 humanly possible to do so, finish Mr. Atherton this week,
42 otherwise there is going to be another of these shunts (as
43 I call them) where we lose Mr. Bowes, I do not know, for
44 the umpteenth time, effectively. I do not know if
45 Ms. Steel has an update on the funeral she mentioned
46 yesterday? Then there is Dr. Pattison, he becomes
47 endangered or else Mr. Morris' half-term is threatened.
48 Really, I stood up now so as to invite the Defendants to
49 consider what their position is in relation to all of
50 this. Ultimately, it is a matter for your Lordship, not
51 for the Defendants or for me.
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is ultimately. I mean, what occurs to me
54 is that the sense of the matter is that I rise for
55 10 minutes now so that you can just make sure you have
56 straight in your mind your list of topics. But what you do
57 between now and 1 o'clock is make sure that you have got
58 out in the open in the arena at least the documents that
59 you are batting for and the general basis of your
60 application for them, but that we stop that when we get to
