Day 087 - 10 Feb 95 - Page 23


     
     1        be saying, "Do not pay much attention to their views
     2        because they are in the pay of one of the Plaintiffs", but
     3        that is not an attack on their expertise.  That is an
     4        attack on their impartiality.  What you are really doing
     5        here is saying, "This is a scientific paper.  Therefore,
     6        I am entitled to treat any assertion of fact in it as
     7        evidence of that fact".
     8
     9   MS. STEEL:  Can I finish this one for a minute?  If there was a
    10        scientific report saying that we have investigated
    11        advertising and it completely brain washes children, and we
    12        put that to Mr. Hawkes and said, "Do you not think you
    13        ought to stop using advertisements because the effect is
    14        you are brainwashing children?", is that something we would
    15        be allowed to do?
    16
    17   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You would because Mr. Hawkes is, to some
    18        extent, an expert.  You would certainly be able to test him
    19        on that and he might agree or he might say, "The person who
    20        wrote that is very eminent, but I do not agree with his
    21        view", and you would be entitled to have that reaction from
    22        Mr. Hawkes.
    23
    24   MS. STEEL:  Even if he had just been in the advertising job for
    25        a year and he could not possibly be called an expert by any
    26        stretch of the imagination, could we still put an expert
    27        report to him saying that then?
    28
    29   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I cannot see any point in doing that.
    30        I might not stop you but I cannot see where you were trying
    31        to go, because you were asking someone who you, yourself,
    32        would assert is not an expert to give an expert view on
    33        something.
    34
    35   MS. STEEL:   No, but to say, "Do you not think you ought to stop
    36        your advertising for this reason"?
    37
    38   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No, that would not be the right question.
    39        The question would be:  If it were a fact that this kind of
    40        advertising is brainwashing children, then you ask your
    41        question and to me you then say, "The hypothesis we put to
    42        Mr. Hawkes was a correct one in fact.  Look at the expert
    43        opinion we have called in relation to that".
    44
    45   MS. STEEL:   I do not understand.  Can you ask a witness of fact
    46        about a scientific journal, a scientific report, an expert
    47        report, a published expert report?
    48
    49   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, it would depend, would it not -- and I am
    50        trying to be helpful -- whether the person, such as 
    51        Mr. Hawkes or Mr. Green, could be expected in the course of 
    52        a long experience in a job to have known about that.  It 
    53        could go to his credibility as a witness, and the extent to
    54        which he is entitled to put himself forward as an
    55        experienced person who knows what his business is about.
    56        The other example Ms. Steel gave plainly cannot be done.
    57        It would have to be done in the way your Lordship put it.
    58
    59   MR. MORRIS:  This all came out because of the Preston report.
    60        We wanted to put that report to the Plaintiffs' witnesses,

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