Day 149 - 06 Jul 95 - Page 37


     
     1        hall was too small and was over-crowded, paragraph 34; that
     2        the cutting boards were worn and not easily cleanable,
     3        paragraph 35; that the implements in the boning hall were
     4        not properly sterilized, paragraph 36, and that there was a
     5        minced meat shift during the night which constituted a
     6        human health hazard, paragraph 37.  None of that was put to
     7        Mr. Bennett in cross-examination.
     8
     9        My Lord, the inferences which we draw from that chronology
    10        and those events are these, that the Defendants had at the
    11        time when they cross-examined Mr. Bennett or before all or
    12        most of the detailed information which in due course
    13        Ms. Hovi came to provide in the witness box, that for some
    14        reason or another, it may have been deliberate, it may have
    15        been negligence, I know not what, was surpressed.
    16
    17        Last, that after Mr. Bennett had given evidence and during
    18        the course of the 14 days which elapsed between his
    19        evidence and Ms. Hovi's evidence, they deliberately chose
    20        not to disclose to us what it was that Ms. Hovi would say
    21        in detail.  From that we draw the inference, or we make the
    22        submission, rather, that the Defendants' suggestion that
    23        the detail which Ms. Hovi gave all of a sudden, as we saw
    24        it, when she came to give evidence was merely a response to
    25        Mr. Bennett's evidence is, frankly, bogus.
    26
    27        My Lord, it may be that your Lordship will feel that it is
    28        quite unnecessary (and I could understand this) to make any
    29        kind of finding about the Defendants' motives or conduct.
    30        The fact is that as a consequence of what happened, without
    31        attributing blame, first, that the Plaintiffs had no
    32        opportunity to deal with Ms. Hovi's detailed information by
    33        way of evidence-in-chief of their own.  These things, or
    34        some of them, were first adverted to in a rather neutral
    35        and oblique way in cross-examination of Mr. Bennett.
    36
    37        The second consequence is that because no notice was given
    38        to us between the end of Mr. Bennett's evidence and the
    39        beginning of Ms. Hovi's we had no proper opportunity,
    40        indeed no opportunity at all, to obtain detailed
    41        instructions on those matters before I came to
    42        cross-examine Ms. Hovi.
    43
    44        My Lord, whether or not it be right -- we would assert that
    45        it was -- that this amounts to a blatant piece of chicanery
    46        on the Defendants' part, we would submit that the
    47        Plaintiffs must now in justice be allowed the opportunity
    48        denied them by what has happened to cross-examine Ms. Hovi
    49        in a way which would have been possible if we had proper
    50        prior notice of her evidence and, second, to call evidence 
    51        in rebuttal.  I make this remark in passing ----- 
    52 
    53   MS. STEEL:   I thought (and I have just checked it and I am
    54        correct) that Mr. Rampton is completely wrong about his
    55        assertion that we deliberately told Ms. Hovi not to make a
    56        supplementary statement.  All she said when he asked her:
    57         "They advised you not to make a supplementary statement
    58        including all that material?"  She says:  "I was not
    59        advised on the possibility of making it", which is not the
    60        same as being specifically told not to make one.

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