Day 249 - 14 May 96 - Page 68


     
     1        witness statement to know what her case is about this.  It
     2        may be that I should be prompted to make some further
     3        inquiries of my own, and after the break, which is at the
     4        end of May, beginning of June, it may be too late.
     5
     6   MS. STEEL:   What would you like me to do, Mr Rampton, write it
     7        while I am here cross-examining the witness?
     8
     9   MR. RAMPTON:  I am actually speaking to the judge, or trying to
    10        address the judge.  It would be helpful to know what
    11        Ms. Steel's case is.  She says private investigators
    12        attended pickets and handed out leaflets.  If she suggested
    13        to Mr. Nicholson identities and dates it might help us to
    14        know what her case is.
    15
    16   MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I suggest you do...  You see, the way the
    17        question has been put at the moment is whether he read
    18        reports which had certain information in them and he said
    19        he cannot remember.  So, for better or worse that is the
    20        end of the line so far as his recollection is concerned.
    21        But what I suggest you put to Mr. Nicholson -- since
    22        Mr. Carroll has come and gone 3 weeks ago -- nearly 4 weeks
    23        ago -- Mr. Nicholson is in the witness box now, and it
    24        looks as if it will be 3 weeks anyway before we come back,
    25        and possibly 4 after Mr. Nicholson has given evidence
    26        today, and if we come back to him on Wednesday afternoon or
    27        Friday afternoon there may well then be something like a
    28        3-week break before we come back to publication witnesses
    29        -- what your case is in so far as matters such as this
    30        and, indeed, the question of when the private
    31        investigators, or a private investigator, carried on
    32        observations after January 1991.  The form you can put it
    33        in if you choose is 'I suggest to you that', and then take
    34        it item by item rather than rolling up a lot of allegations
    35        in one question.  If you do have a question put to you,
    36        I suggest to you that, treat it as a question and either
    37        say 'I do not know' or, if you feel from your knowledge
    38        that it is wrong, say that, or if you feel from your
    39        knowledge that it is or might be right, say that.
    40        A.  Yes, my Lord.
    41
    42   Q.   Whatever occurs to you to be the appropriate answer.  But
    43        although this obligation will still be there for you to
    44        produce a further statement with the matters you can give
    45        evidence about in it, that way you put to a Plaintiffs'
    46        witness, whom yourself described as an important
    47        Plaintiffs' witness, what your case is on matters which do
    48        not yet appear in the witness statements you have served.
    49        Do you understand?
    50 
    51   MS. STEEL:   Yes. 
    52 
    53   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do it in as much detail as you reasonably
    54        can.  So, for instance, I suggest with regard to the
    55        private investigator after January 1991, you suggest 'do
    56        your best to suggest when he attended meetings', 'where
    57        they were', 'what, if anything, he did' and with regard to
    58        Dalston, for instance, 'when that occurred' and 'what the
    59        leaflets were', and any other things like that which you
    60        would feel obliged to put into your witness statement or

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