Day 274 - 04 Jul 96 - Page 05


     
     1
     2        I stress that the plaintiffs may not want to agree, it
     3        seems to me, that sheet of paper unless the defendants
     4        agree their analyses, and the defendants may not be
     5        prepared to agree the plaintiffs' analyses unless the
     6        plaintiffs agree the sheet which Professor Crawford
     7        referred to.  But it is all totally unresolved at this
     8        moment.
     9
    10        Document 21, this is in the list under yellow volume 5,
    11        Mr. Fairgrieve, his appendices, the same comments apply as
    12        to visiting frequency, but both sides have referred to
    13        them, but query whether they are admissible at the moment.
    14        And just as a final example, and I stress that these are
    15        only picking a document here and there, in pink 12,
    16        documents 56 to 52, which include, if my recollection is
    17        right, various computer printouts as to crew figures,
    18        including young persons working 96 hours plus and matters
    19        of that kind, all those matters are completely up in the
    20        air and I foresee very real prospects of having to ignore
    21        them altogether and saying there is no evidence as to who
    22        worked what hours because the printouts have not been
    23        agreed.
    24
    25        Having said all this, I must leave the next steps to the
    26        parties themselves.  The concerns which I have expressed
    27        about admissibility of the documents and contents are
    28        concerns which I have expressed on a number of occasions in
    29        the past and I cannot keep on restating them.  I am
    30        repeating them now, because we are reaching the end of the
    31        calling of the evidence, and the one thing I can and will
    32        do at some stage in the pretty near future is say that is
    33        it, that is all the evidence I am going to accept.
    34
    35        The other reason, as I have already indicated, why I am
    36        making this statement now is because I have had second
    37        thoughts about whether I should allow any party to call
    38        evidence to prove documents after this month.  In my view,
    39        we should return to the matter on Monday morning before Ms.
    40        Steel gives evidence or Mr. Morris, if it is decided that
    41        he should go before Ms. Steel, if they do choose to give
    42        evidence.  If the defendants are not prepared then to admit
    43        documents on Barlow Lyde & Gilbert's list, either because
    44        Ms. Steel or Mr. Morris say expressly that they will not
    45        admit the documents or documents in question, or because
    46        they are still not ready to comment on whether they will
    47        admit or not, the plaintiffs should, in my view, be
    48        prepared to prove the documents which they want to rely on
    49        as soon as the defendants' evidence is completed, or to say
    50        well, we will abandon those documents, if the defendants
    51        will not agree them, we will not prove them and they will
    52        not have any evidential status at all for anyone to use, or
    53        to argue in due course that this document or that document
    54        is admissible in its own right by some route or other.
    55
    56        I would like Mr. Rampton therefore and Mr. Atkinson to tell
    57        me on Monday morning, once I have given Ms. Steel or
    58        Mr. Morris an opportunity to say anything which they wish
    59        to say about the list, I would like Mr. Rampton or
    60        Mr. Atkinson to tell me then which documents on the Barlow

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