Day 312 - 11 Dec 96 - Page 35
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2 MR. RAMPTON: I now have a proper copy of Houston v Smith, so
3 can I hand that in? Mr. Atkinson tells me it complete
4 (handed).
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6 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Thank you. You have come to the end of
7 that. Finish it on page 7. Two o'clock.
8
9 (Luncheon adjournment)
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11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Perhaps I should say, not to invite comment
12 but so that everyone knows I fixed on it, I have read
13 during the break the Hodgkinson, or whatever it is called,
14 and there are two points of interest in the part on 'what
15 is an expert'. The first is this: the author makes what
16 seems to me to be a very common sense, good common sense,
17 point that in deciding who is an expert for the purpose of
18 giving an opinion the practicalities of the matter are that
19 generally the evidence is allowed in, even though there
20 might be great arguments about admissibility, and of course
21 the extent of expertise and whether the witness does have
22 any expertise at all is relevant to the weight you attach
23 to it in any event. That is a practical approach which
24 I must say appeals to me. One actually hears the evidence,
25 and then the extent of the experience and the expertise of
26 the witness may well affect the weight, if any, which
27 attaches to it.
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29 The second one is this, it reminded me of the case of
30 Summers which was decided in 1963. In fact, counsel in it
31 were Mr. Woolf, who is now Lord Woolf, the Master of the
32 Rolls, and Mr. Wood, who is Sir John Wood, and I remember
33 it because they were both more senior members of the
34 chambers I was just starting in. It was important in those
35 days when there were a whole lot of trials for people
36 driving whilst allegedly unfit through drink, because
37 doctors referred to tables which a British Medical
38 Association committee had worked out from their own
39 research dealing with the rate at which alcohol broke down,
40 so that if you found how much alcohol was in the driver's
41 blood two hours after the accident you could work back and
42 find out much he had had in his blood at the time of the
43 accident.
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45 In the case of Summers a doctor who had not done any
46 research himself referred to these tables, and the
47 appellant was convicted and appealed, and lord Parker, who
48 was then Chief Justice giving the judgment of the court,
49 said first of all that the doctor, although he had not done
50 any research in the area himself, had medical knowledge and
51 was entitled to refer to the tables. Moreover, he said the
52 tables were admissible in their own right but not just
53 because they had been made by a very skilled BMA Committee,
54 but because they had, over the years, become accepted by
55 the whole of the medical profession as reliable.
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57 And the reason I mention that, and openly as it were so
58 that people can see I have it in mind, it may reflect to
59 some extent on these grey books. I know it is 33 years ago
60 and there have been other authorities since. Because at
