Day 253 - 21 May 96 - Page 46
1 MR. RAMPTON: It is a correct assessment of the situation for
2 your Lordship to say: "For all I know there may be no
3 further witness statements forthcoming", but in that case,
4 I am bound to say, I doubt whether I have any obligations
5 in the matter at all except in relation to the occasions
6 identified by the Defendants.
7
8 Can I put it this way: Suppose this were a pre-trial
9 application for leave to amend, your Lordship grants leave
10 on what we say is a somewhat sketchy basis advanced in
11 support of the amendment. What immediately follows from
12 that in the normal course of litigation is a request for
13 particulars, each and every occasion relied on, what did
14 the people do which you say encouraged a continuation of a
15 moribund campaign?
16
17 MS. STEEL: We did it all when we made the application.
18
19 MR. RAMPTON: No. I am sorry, they did not do it, my Lord. What
20 they did was to point so some things that my witnesses had
21 said. That said, if the answer to the request for
22 particulars is "cannot give any", then that is the
23 beginning and the end of their case and they are not
24 entitled to fish for a case by asking for names and for
25 dates of which they are not aware.
26
27 This is why I complain that I have had nothing positive
28 from their side. I do not even have an account from them
29 or from any of their witnesses of any of the things that
30 six people whose identities they know are alleged to have
31 done in aid of the continuation of the campaign.
32
33 Leaving aside entirely the question of legal professional
34 privilege, I am very loathe to volunteer information, as
35 ever, to enable the Defendants to try to find a case which
36 on their own material, and in the light of the very
37 considerable material they have got from my witnesses and
38 from my documents they are not presently able to make.
39
40 They should be able, in the light of the information they
41 have got, that is the identity of 6 of the inquiry agents,
42 a vast number of dates-- I say a vast number of dates, it
43 is a large number of dates. It runs all the way through
44 from October 1989 until September 1990----
45
46 MR. MORRIS: January 1991.
47
48 MR. RAMPTON: No. On the evidence September 1990, they have
49 specific dates, they have specific descriptions, they have
50 accounts of who was at the meetings. They should by now be
51 in a position to make a case that this that or the other
52 identified agent did this that or the other act in aid of
53 the continuation of the campaign which otherwise would have
54 foundered or died a natural death.
55
56 I have heard nothing from their side to make me think they
57 know anything to support what they have pleaded, and until
58 such time as I do, I am very unwilling simply to spoon feed
59 them with further information which they do not presently
60 have to see if they can find something to support a case
