Day 149 - 06 Jul 95 - Page 35


     
     1        five to.
     2
     3                         (Luncheon Adjournment)
     4
     5   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I come now to the Hovi/Bone question as
     6        to the question of whether or not the mass of detail which
     7        Ms. Hovi gave in the witness box should have been
     8        anticipated by us because it was all covered or implied by
     9        her written statement.  I have already dealt, I think, with
    10        that.  All I say is that I repeat my submission that would
    11        have required the powers of a clairvoyant.
    12
    13        My Lord, I do respond, however, to the assertion that the
    14        detail which she gave in the witness box was but a response
    15        (and no more) to the evidence which Mr. Bennett had given
    16        when he was called by us.  My Lord, that is quite plainly
    17        on the chronology and in the evidence available in the
    18        transcripts not correct.
    19
    20        My Lord, Mr. Bennett gave evidence-in-chief -- the
    21        chronology is, we submit, constructive -- on 15th March.
    22        For Mr. Morris' benefit, this is day 104.  He was
    23        cross-examined briefly on that day and for the whole of the
    24        next day, 16th March, day 105.
    25
    26        Ms. Hovi did not give evidence until 30th March, that is to
    27        say, a whole 14 days later.  My Lord, we know, because
    28        Ms. Hovi told us, that at some time or another (and we do
    29        not know when) she offered to put all her additional
    30        information into a supplementary statement and that the
    31        Defendants refused that offer.
    32
    33        My Lord, if that had happened after Mr. Bennett had
    34        finished his evidence, then at the very least we should
    35        have been served with a supplementary statement during the
    36        course of the fortnight before she came to give evidence in
    37        the witness box, and so that I could have had time to take
    38        proper instructions for cross-examination.  That did not
    39        happen.  Even if it had, it would, of course, have been far
    40        too late for me to do anything about it at that time by way
    41        of evidence-in-chief.
    42
    43        In fact, my Lord, we submit that one can see by looking at
    44        the cross-examination by the Defendants of Mr. Bennett on
    45        16th March that the Defendants already had a good deal, if
    46        not all, of the detailed information which Ms. Hovi was
    47        intending to provide when she gave evidence, but, of which,
    48        of course, we had been given no notice whatsoever.
    49
    50        My Lord, I will give your Lordship the topics and the page 
    51        references in the transcripts, the transcript for 
    52        16th March, which, in our submission, make good what I have 
    53        just been saying.
    54
    55        The question of line speed and throughput was raised in,
    56        largely speaking, a hypothetical way with Mr. Bennett on
    57        pages 11 and 12 and on pages 13 to 15.  The question of
    58        whether or not sterilization of the sticking knives and the
    59        pithing rods was also raised briefly and in a hypothetical
    60        way on page 18.  Mr. Bennett gave the answer that, in fact,

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