Day 253 - 21 May 96 - Page 51
1 it is extremely difficult to name specific dates.
2
3 Obviously we are not in a position to find out the
4 identities of each and every inquiry agent. Beyond the
5 ones we already know, we have absolutely no way of finding
6 out.
7
8 I do not really understand the point about the names not
9 ever being known, if that is what he said, because they
10 must have had some form of being able to identify who the
11 agent was otherwise anything that they were told would be
12 effectively useless because they could never follow up on
13 it, or call the person as a witness or anything like that.
14
15 If that was the intention from the start, that they were
16 never going to use that person, then I would also argue
17 that any notes relating to anything that that person said
18 at any meeting would not be privileged because it was not
19 information handed over for the purposes of legal
20 proceedings. It just seems that it cannot be so, that they
21 do not have any means of finding out who that person is,
22 quite accessible or easy.
23
24 I do not think I have anything else to say, although I am
25 not sure. Basically, all our application is is for the
26 interrogatories. It is not for discovery. It is not for
27 anything else, and I do not know whether a lot of the stuff
28 Mr. Rampton was saying was more or less irrelevant in terms
29 of the question about interrogatories, so I will not answer
30 it, unless you particularly think there is something that
31 needs answering, the things about how we had not provided
32 information about what our pleadings were based on and
33 things like that. It does not really seem it is relevant
34 to this particular question of interrogatories.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not see that as being necessarily at
37 issue on the interrogatories. I think, in any event, you
38 have got to think about whatever information you get from
39 the Plaintiffs, or have got from the Plaintiffs.
40
41 If you are actually, so far as your case of consent to
42 publication is concerned, hoping to adduce evidence from
43 your own witnesses, which includes yourself, which goes
44 beyond what is in the present witness statements, that is
45 additional from inferences you would invite me to draw from
46 the Plaintiffs' own witnesses, then you have got to give
47 notice of that in the usual way by supplemental statements.
48
49 MS. STEEL: I have said we are intending to try and get together
50 supplementary statements.
51
52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If you have got that point, there is nothing
53 more I propose to say about that at the moment.
54
55 MS. STEEL: OK.
56
57 MR. MORRIS: There is a fundamental issue on both sides as to
58 the role of the inquiry agents. The Plaintiffs are relying
59 on them and any information they received from any of their
60 agents, whether identified or not with their real names,
