Day 090 - 16 Feb 95 - Page 16


     
     1   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
     2
     3   MS. STEEL:  Yesterday Mr. Pattison gave a view of what he
     4        thought Dr. Gregory thought about gasing by carbon dioxide
     5        and it did not tally with what Dr. Gregory said in court.
     6        Do I need to put that to the witness or will it just be
     7        assumed that what Dr. Gregory said in court is what he
     8        believes?
     9
    10   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I think the reality of the situation, unless
    11        any challenge is made by Mr. Rampton to Mr. Gregory, which
    12        I would have thought is very unlikely, he called him to
    13        give evidence, that if there is a difference of
    14        recollection of fact including, for instance, what was said
    15        or what was done between two witnesses, if it is important
    16        to decide which is more likely, then I will have to do
    17        that.
    18
    19        Where two witnesses express an opinion and their opinions
    20        conflict, again I may have to decide which I prefer.  Where
    21        a witness, let us say, Mr. Gregory, says what he thinks and
    22        then another witness, say, Mr. Pattison, says what he
    23        thinks Dr. Gregory thought, I will accept Dr. Gregory's
    24        evidence of what he thought rather than another witness's
    25        evidence of what he thought he thought.
    26
    27   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, since at the end of case your Lordship
    28        may feel that perhaps the most important element of this
    29        animal welfare question is not quite so much what
    30        incidental suffering may be caused to animals in the
    31        process, though that is obviously a feature of it, but
    32        perhaps, more important, what are the attitudes and beliefs
    33        of the people who are responsible for supplying McDonald's
    34        with their product.  If a challenge is to be made to
    35        Dr. Pattison's (who is responsible for this at Sun Valley)
    36        integrity and his creditability about what he said in
    37        relation, for example, to his belief about whether this
    38        method is humane or not, then it should be made, in my
    39        respectful submission, whether by reference to Dr. Gregory
    40        or any other material, I do not know, but I think it
    41        should.
    42
    43   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, I do not know -----
    44
    45   MR. MORRIS:  We do not accept Mr. Rampton's analysis of the
    46        situation.
    47
    48   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Suppose Dr. Gregory said that he thought a
    49        process caused an animal suffering, suppose another witness
    50        later said:  "I do not think it does cause suffering" and 
    51        also said:  "I do not think Dr. Gregory thought that it 
    52        caused suffering", you need not bother with the third of 
    53        those because I am likely to accept from Dr. Gregory what
    54        he thought.  But if you challenge the opinion of the
    55        witness, if the witness himself did not think that it
    56        caused suffering, you put it to him.  You can perfectly
    57        well put it to him, if you want, by saying:  "Well,
    58        actually Dr. Gregory thought that this caused suffering".
    59        Do you see what I mean?
    60

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