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

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