Day 034 - 11 Oct 94 - Page 62
1 the witness by Mr. Rampton, will you read it anyway or
2 what?
3
4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I propose to do in relation to that is
5 only to read what either Mr. Rampton puts to the witness
6 or what you put to the witness in re-examination.
7 Obviously, I cannot stop my eyes falling on other parts,
8 but unless they are strictly proved or accepted by the
9 witness in evidence, I will not take them into account.
10
11 It is a fact of life in litigation that when you are
12 before a single professional judge, some things will come
13 out which he just has to or she has to put to one side
14 because, at the end of the day, they have not been proved
15 and it is sometimes difficult for people to accept that
16 one can do that, but one spends one's whole life doing it.
17
18 MS. STEEL: So we do not have -----
19
20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There will be things which you draw to my
21 attention which, at the end of the day, are not
22 established and will have to be put to one side, and there
23 will be things which Mr. Rampton draws to my attention,
24 either directly or indirectly, for which at the end of the
25 day there is no good evidence and they will fall to one
26 side.
27
28 MS. STEEL: If Mr. Rampton does not bring something up, we do
29 not have to specifically worry about making sure -----
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If Mr. Rampton does not bring something up
32 out of that darker green labelled bundle, you need not
33 bother your head.
34
35 MS. STEEL: Right, OK.
36
37 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I would have to say this. Ms. Steel in
38 a sense has this point to make that it was supplied to
39 your Lordship for convenience, not so that your Lordship
40 should spend a long time going through it in advance. If
41 the tribunal in fact in this case had been a jury, of
42 course it could not have done it; would not have done it.
43
44 MR. MORRIS: Part of the confusion came when we got a cover
45 letter for this it said that "much of the material purely
46 goes to credit" but it did not identify which -----
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It does not go to anything at all unless it
49 is put and accepted or otherwise in due course proved.
50 There are, in fact, special rules with limits as to the
51 evidence you can call in relation to credit. Generally,
52 what happens -- I am not being legalistic now -- is that
53 something which it is alleged that a witness has said or
54 written in the past is put to him or her. If they accept
55 it, there we are. If they do not accept it, that is the
56 last you hear of it, because there are restrictions on
57 actually calling evidence in rebuttal as to credit. If we
58 get to that problem, then we will discuss it again.
59
60 MR. MORRIS: It is just when they said in the cover letter that
