Day 203 - 12 Jan 96 - Page 69
1
2 Q. Then you went on holiday after that, did you?
3 A. I mean, yes, OK, yes.
4
5 Q. It is all right.
6 A. I vaguely remember, to be honest with you. I delayed
7 my holiday actually for some other reason so .....
8
9 Q. Right. OK. You did go on holiday in the end though?
10 A. Yes, this December I went on holiday. I had two
11 holidays.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Is there some great point about the holiday
14 which is completely passing me by?
15
16 MS. STEEL: I was a just a bit amazed whether he could not
17 remember whether he had been on holiday five weeks ago.
18 That was all. It just seemed a bit strange to me.
19
20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not know. Holidays seem to disappear
21 from one's recollection all too quickly, in my experience.
22 I mean, if there is some great significance in the holiday,
23 let me into the secret, or is it just how good Mr. Skehel's
24 recollection is?
25
26 MR. MORRIS: It is relevant because the Plaintiffs in their
27 solicitor's letter to us basically had no knowledge of any
28 of these meetings, they said. This was on 6th December
29 after I had written twice to them, and after we had applied
30 for the notes from this series of meetings which we had
31 identified, who had attended and everything, had said that
32 Neil Skehel was on holiday and that nobody else "who was
33 involved with Colchester at the time, directly or
34 indirectly, has any knowledge of any such meetings", even
35 though Mr. Atherton said he had been asked about those
36 meetings. So, I think this only adds to our belief that
37 documents have been lost as a strategy to -----
38
39 MR. RAMPTON: No, my Lord. I am sorry, I have to intervene. As
40 usual, Mr. Morris is making wild and rather silly
41 allegations against Mrs. Brinley-Codd. What, in fact,
42 happened was that the original enquiries about the meeting
43 was made on the basis of some of handwritten note of
44 Mr. Morris', where no names were given. That is my
45 understanding. So it does not surprise me that no-one
46 could remember anything. It was not until after Mr. Coton
47 had given evidence -- he, first of all, if your Lordship
48 remembers, said that Mr. Andy Taylor was there. He later
49 retracted that. It was only after that that we managed to
50 get the kind of detail which we succeeded in getting by the
51 time we had served Mr. Atherton's statement. I think
52 Mr. Coton gave evidence about 5th or 6th December -- 7th
53 and 8th, that is right.
54
55 MR. MORRIS: I wrote -----
56
57 MR. RAMPTON: Mrs. Brinley-Codd's letter was on 6th.
58
59 MR. MORRIS: I wrote on 30th November 1995 and on the
60 1st December 1995 about these meetings. Then the one on
