Day 188 - 15 Nov 95 - Page 53
1
2 Q. You gave him an opportunity to air his views?
3 A. Absolutely, yes.
4
5 MR. MORRIS: No further questions.
6
7 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Right. Thank you.
8
9 MR. MORRIS: No further questions.
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Thank you, Miss Tobin.
12
13 (The witness withdrew)
14
15 MR. MORRIS: There was one legal matter I wanted to bring up,
16 not about today, but something about our witness on Monday
17 which disturbed me. But I think we are big enough to
18 handle it. It is that Mr. Rampton basically accused our
19 witness of making up lies; this was Mr. Lamti.
20
21 I was informed what the correct procedure is, that if you
22 believe somebody is lying or not telling the truth, you
23 have to put the details to them; you have to have some
24 grounds, some evidence; and I want to know, I would like to
25 know if what Mr. Rampton did on Monday was admissible under
26 the rules of cross-examination -- because it certainly
27 extremely upset our witness afterwards, and absolutely no
28 grounds were given of any kind. So I just need some
29 guidance on that, because I certainly have felt like saying
30 similar things to many other witnesses, but I have
31 restricted it to people where I have got obvious grounds
32 and where their evidence has been tested. His evidence was
33 not tested at all. So that is the why I ask for some
34 clarification on that.
35
36 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What do you want to say, Mr. Rampton?
37
38 MR. RAMPTON: Only this, my Lord, that I am not allowed to make
39 accusations against witnesses; nobody is, and that includes
40 Mr. Morris -- and I do not accept what he has just said
41 about his own conduct, but that is beside the point. I am
42 not allowed, as a member of the Bar, to make accusations
43 against witnesses unless I have material -- unless I know
44 of material to support what I say. What I am not obliged
45 to do -- and, in this particular case, as your Lordship
46 knows, could not do -- is to put the precise detail.
47
48 What is perfectly apparent is that I have been instructed
49 by the people in France that what Mr. Lamti has said in his
50 statement is untrue and that he knows it is untrue. That
51 is sufficient for my purpose. That is all that I put.
52
53 MS. STEEL: Why, in that case, did Mr. Rampton not spend time
54 going through it, saying, "That is wrong, that is wrong"?
55
56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There may be reasons why he cannot go
57 through it.
58
59 MS. STEEL: I do not see why.
60
