Day 087 - 10 Feb 95 - Page 21


     
     1        be applied to that statement of Dr. Mitchell Cohon", and we
     2        do not have to say he is beyond the seas. He is clearly an
     3        American physician.
     4
     5   MS. STEEL:  I have just noticed that this is from the Journal of
     6        Medicine.  Surely that would mean that we were entitled to
     7        cross-examine witnesses on that basis anyway.
     8
     9   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No.  You see, this is the difficulty.
    10
    11   MS. STEEL:  Witnesses have been cross-examined on the basis of
    12        other ---
    13
    14   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes, they have.
    15
    16   MS. STEEL: - scientific documents.
    17
    18   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  That was the area I was talking about.  If
    19        you have a microbiologist in the witness box, or you have
    20        got a physician who puts himself forward as an expert in
    21        haemorrhagic colitis or abdominal diseases of one kind or
    22        another, and you are asking him a matter of scientific
    23        expertise in relation to that, it might be -- I do not know
    24         -- that Mr. Rampton would say, "He is happy to follow the
    25        same procedure as has been followed with the doctors we
    26        have had so far on nutrition".
    27
    28        I think, in order to see whether he has any and, if so,
    29        what objection, you have got to say what are the parts you
    30        particularly want from it.  If you say, "We want the whole
    31        lot", maybe Mr. Rampton -- I am not encouraging him to do
    32        so -- it would be very easy if he just said, "Oh well, I do
    33        not mind it being used in cross-examination.  Let us see
    34        where we get to."  But if one looks at the very first
    35        sentence in the first half of 1982, two outbreaks of an
    36        unusual gastrointestinal illness etc.; what is that?  Is
    37        that something Dr. Cohon is saying of his own direct
    38        knowledge, or is it hearsay or what?
    39
    40   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, of course with that one has absolutely no
    41        idea at all.  One does not know even if it is Dr. Cohon who
    42        is saying it.  There are 12 authors of this article of whom
    43        Dr. Cohon is the last listed.  As I have said, one notices
    44        from that that, at any rate, some of the information on
    45        which this article is based has come, as one would expect,
    46        from secondary sources in the places concerned.
    47
    48        My Lord, I do not know whether I would object to this
    49        document technically or not.  All I am doing is using it as
    50        an example of what I propose, as a submission of principle, 
    51        that for all Mr. Morris' wish to have it free and easy he 
    52        is not going to, and if there are documents which he wishes 
    53        to refer to which I object to, then, in my submission, he
    54        has got to satisfy the requirements of the law before he
    55        can do so.  That certainly applies to the Preston report.
    56        Whether it applies to this I do not know because I have not
    57        really looked at it.  I have compared it with the statement
    58        of Mr. Rummel.  There does not seem to be much water
    59        between them.  So, if necessary, when it comes to it,
    60        I will ask your Lordship to rule on the admissibility of

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