Day 147 - 04 Jul 95 - Page 42
1 said yesterday about the order of events to the end of
2 term, all you have to do, if you chose to do it and think
3 it worthwhile, is take their statements out of the bundle
4 you have here, take them home and have a quick read through
5 the witnesses who are about to come maybe in two or three
6 days time and compare them with the copies you have
7 yourself.
8
9 If they are different in a way which embarrasses you tell
10 me, but since we are not following, for better or worse,
11 the Lord Chief Justice's recent practice direction in
12 relation to treating statements which have been served as
13 the evidence-in-chief, it probably does not matter very
14 much or at all.
15
16 MS. STEEL: This matter has arisen because the Plaintiffs, at
17 least that we have discovered, put statements in the trial
18 bundles which they have not disclosed to us which is not
19 the correct practice and which they should not have done.
20 We do not have the time to spend ages going through the
21 statements to compare them. In some cases we have written
22 on statements, so we do not want to hand them over to the
23 Plaintiffs for them to check them either.
24
25 So we suggest, since this was caused by the doings of the
26 Plaintiffs, that they should pay for an independent person
27 to make that comparison on our behalf to ensure that the
28 statements in the trial bundles are the ones which were
29 served originally.
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I will give a ruling on that in due course.
32 On the matters where an indication from me given as the
33 argument goes along is not sufficient, I propose to give
34 all my rulings in one judgment in due course when I have
35 heard all the argument on the contentious matters.
36
37 MS. STEEL: There are 13 bundles of statements which would need
38 to be compared with the statements that were originally
39 served. It is a considerable task. It is the fault of the
40 Plaintiffs that this has happened. I do not think that we
41 should be put to a disadvantage through something that is
42 caused by their actions and their failing to follow the
43 correct procedures in putting the disclosed statements in
44 the trial bundles and substituting them for different ones.
45
46 MR. MORRIS: Just concentrating on the Plaintiffs' list, there
47 are a couple of things. I am not sure what happened about
48 the explanation about the Wages Councils and the EC
49 Directives and Regulations. I cannot remember what
50 Mr. Rampton said, but that was something that was going to
51 come -----
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: He did not deal with those.
54
55 MR. RAMPTON: Not yesterday.
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Not yesterday, no. They were not on your
58 list, I think.
59
60 MR. MORRIS: No.
