Day 166 - 28 Sep 95 - Page 07


     
     1        solicitor's involvement; whereas the situation with our
     2        witnesses is completely different, where their statements
     3        are often, you know, just letters hurriedly written out and
     4        all that kind of stuff.  But we have always tried to take
     5        our statements as read, unless there is some very good
     6        reason not to, and to build our case upon that.  So,
     7        I think it would be helpful if they were taken as read, and
     8        also, whatever is wrong with my arm, it would save me have
     9        to take voluminous notes that are identical to the ones in
    10        the statement already.
    11
    12   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, this is really what troubles me -- I did
    13        avert to it yesterday in passing -- that I am quite happy
    14        for that to happen with our witnesses, but I do believe the
    15        same rule must be applied to the Defendants' witnesses so
    16        far as possible.
    17
    18        The reason I am concerned about it is that an example
    19        I gave yesterday was the New Zealand witness, Mr. Alistair
    20        Duncan.  His statement runs to not quite two sides of A4.
    21        What I cannot fathom at the moment is how it could be
    22        thought by Mr. Morris on the basis of that statement (which
    23        takes five minutes to read) that his evidence-in-chief
    24        might take a day.  The same goes for Mr. Bowland,
    25        Mr. Yensen and one or two of the English witnesses as
    26        well.  It is very, very puzzling.
    27
    28        Unless we get some indication from the Defendants why it is
    29        they say that such a short and relatively innocuous
    30        statement might take a day to extrapolate in
    31        evidence-in-chief, then I will invite your Lordship to make
    32        a ruling, as your Lordship is entitled to do now, under the
    33        latest practice direction about the length of time the
    34        Defendants are actually entitled to take in
    35        evidence-in-chief, otherwise, therefore, I see this case
    36        will never end.
    37
    38   MR. MORRIS:  You see, Mr. Rampton has turned something on its
    39        head (as often as he does) to launch an attack against the
    40        Defendants.  None of the Plaintiffs' witnesses have had
    41        their statements taken as read; if we do so, it will be a
    42        courtesy that we will give to the court, to help things
    43        generally.
    44
    45        Secondly, we do not have the administrative back up that
    46        the Plaintiffs have, so we cannot send a solicitor to New
    47        Zealand.  If we call someone from New Zealand 12,000 miles
    48        to talk about a country, and I believe also in Mr. Duncan's
    49        statement he refers to an article which we wrote which is
    50        included with his statement, I believe, it certainly was 
    51        disclosed, which talks about the general situation about 
    52        unions in New Zealand and their relation with McDonald's. 
    53
    54        So there was an extra point I am was going to make:  All
    55        the Plaintiffs' witnesses have brought up new matters,
    56        despite them being a very considerably experienced law
    57        firm, in with all the time and resources in the world they
    58        still bring up a lot of new matters that are not in their
    59        statements.  All I am saying is it will be helpful if
    60        Mr. Atkinson could ask Mr. Atkinson if he could take his

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