Day 146 - 03 Jul 95 - Page 13
1 the effect of those exchanges: The first is that, as far
2 as I can tell, your Lordship's impression at that time --
3 that was only part way through Ms. Hovi's evidence-in-chief
4 -- was exactly the same as mine, that there was a very
5 great deal of material to which she had deposed or which we
6 had had no notification whatsoever save in some cases in
7 the most general terms.
8
9 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. I think it would be helpful if you are
10 able to do so now if you just took one or two examples.
11
12 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I will, if I may, do that in a moment. I
13 will do it, if I may, by reference to Mr. Bone's statement.
14 I will certainly do that and I will refer your Lordship
15 back to the transcript for that purpose and to Ms. Hovi's
16 original statement.
17
18 My Lord, the second thing emerging from that passage is
19 this, that I said that I would not object to her continuing
20 along that line of unnotified examination-in-chief so long
21 as I could be confident that I would get leave to rebut it
22 with evidence of my own and, if necessary or appropriate,
23 to cross-examine her further.
24
25 The third thing I noticed on reading that exchange is that
26 right at the end of it Mr. Morris, having had the
27 indication from your Lordship that he should go on with the
28 evidence-in-chief, the first thing that he comes to at the
29 bottom of page 40, lines 52 and 53, is something about
30 minced beef production allegedly during a night shift which
31 he himself says he does consider to be a new point.
32
33 My Lord, going from there, if I was right about that, there
34 is a great deal more, although not perhaps quite as much as
35 had preceded my intervention, of the same category, that is
36 to say, what I call new evidence. When finally I got to
37 ask Ms. Hovi about that, I did not ask it directly as it
38 happened. It is on page 31 of 31st March, the next day,
39 112, starting at line 10.
40
41 I was suggesting to Ms. Hovi that she was angry about being
42 dismissed and had, therefore, really used this case as an
43 opportunity to get her own back. She said at line 14:
44 "Well, you said yourself", that is me, "yesterday that
45 I had not included everything, and I definitely told to the
46 Defendants that I should make a full statement, should
47 I include everything? And they advised me not to because
48 the statement would have been very long if I had included
49 all the evidence that I gave yesterday on the state of the
50 matters at Jarretts."
51
52 Question: "They advised you not no make supplementary
53 statement including all that material?" Answer: "I was
54 not advised on the possibility of making that. I am very
55 sorry". I asked: "Were they trying to take us by surprise
56 in court? Is that what they were trying to do, the
57 Defendants?" Answer: "I have no idea."
58
59 But, my Lord, plainly two things about that: In Ms. Hovi's
60 mind it is quite apparent that the evidence she has been
