Day 249 - 14 May 96 - Page 66


     
     1        point is we are entitled to know, with whatever available
     2        information is there, the times that the agents were no
     3        longer hired by McDonald's.  We have heard from
     4        Mr. Carroll, in fact, that it was longer than January 1991,
     5        and it is evidence, and there seems to be a dispute about
     6        it.  So, I mean, the point is it can be left to us, as it
     7        always is, and we can go away and mean time we have to
     8        prepare everything in this case and attempt to, no doubt,
     9        draft-up letters which will be ignored and then application
    10        for discovery which will be lost, then possibly an inquiry
    11        for further and better particulars which may or may not be
    12        successful, and may be too late for cross-examining
    13        witnesses.
    14
    15        So, we are just saying that this information surely must be
    16        relevant, and we want the Plaintiffs to be ordered, in one
    17        way or another, to provide the information that we are
    18        asking.  That is all we are saying.  We would like the
    19        advice of the court on that.  Unless, of course, the
    20        Plaintiffs have something to hide I do not see why they
    21        should be uncooperative.
    22
    23   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, even supposing that the information
    24        which Ms. Steel and Mr. Morris want is relevant, they are
    25        only entitled to it in so far as it is volunteered by the
    26        Plaintiffs, whether in a letter or a disclosed witness
    27        statement, or given in evidence from the witness box or
    28        contained in a discoverable document.  The Plaintiffs are
    29        not prepared to volunteer it.  Mr. Nicholson has given his
    30        evidence about it, and for all I know I may hear more from
    31        subsequent witnesses.
    32
    33        This application arose from Mr. Morris suggesting that the
    34        documents passing between Barlow Lyde & Gilbert, the
    35        Plaintiffs' solicitors, and the firm of private
    36        investigators concerned relating to payments of their fees
    37        should be disclosed.  They seem to me to be privileged
    38        documents and until such time as the Plaintiffs waive that
    39        privilege they are not discoverable, whether they would be
    40        relevant once seen or not.
    41
    42        I will hear any evidence which comes from either party in
    43        relation to when private investigations into the activities
    44        of London Greenpeace carried out on behalf of the
    45        Plaintiffs ended, but I have no power to order the
    46        Plaintiffs to disclose it if he chooses not to do so, and,
    47        in particular, no power in the light of professional
    48        privilege, to order discovery of the documents which
    49        Mr. Morris has in mind.
    50 
    51   MS. STEEL:   Now, you said in your statement that with the 
    52        exception of Alan Clare you did not meet the private 
    53        investigators, and that at the time you did not know the
    54        number used, their identity, names or gender until after
    55        the service of the writs, and that you learned the
    56        information for the first time in 1991, and some in 1992.
    57        What was it that you found out about the private
    58        investigators at that stage by way of names, identities,
    59        genders, and how many?
    60        A.  The only names I learned are those that come into

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