Day 032 - 06 Oct 94 - Page 06


     
     1        I think, was only going to refer to a couple of pages in
     2        this report, I deliberately copied the entire text, 38
     3        pages, for everybody in the court and served it two days
     4        ago, precisely to show that we are trying to get as much
     5        material as relevant to the Plaintiffs in advance as much
     6        as we can.  It is particularly galling to be attacked as
     7        if it is some kind of deliberate ploy.
     8
     9   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I do not think you were attacked that it was
    10        a deliberate ploy, and I am certainly not supposing it was
    11        a deliberate ploy.  I think one way you can approach it
    12        now is that you must know, maybe it will happen much less
    13        in areas apart from nutrition -- I can see nutrition is
    14        the obvious area where this happens -- but you should be
    15        able to look ahead generally.  If there is something which
    16        is more a book than a paper and you have a copy of it,
    17        bring it to court and lend it to the other side well in
    18        advance.
    19
    20        If you think there is a book which is relevant to the
    21        evidence of a witness and you have not a copy, make sure
    22        that, I see Mr. Hill is in court, I will use him, make
    23        sure that Mr. Hill knows about that.  Do you understand?
    24
    25   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.
    26
    27   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I am driven to say this.  I understand
    28        your Lordship's sympathy for the Defendants' position (I
    29        do not call it a predicament), but I cannot sit here and
    30        listen to what, in effect, are misleading statements by
    31        Mr. Morris.  I happen to know (and will prove in due
    32        course) that both these defendants spent most of Saturday
    33        demonstrating outside McDonald's restaurant in Woolwich.
    34
    35   MS. STEEL:   I think this is a completely unjustified
    36        criticism.  We have spent the whole of the rest of our
    37        time preparing for this case.  The Plaintiffs are not
    38        closing down their business in order to prepare this
    39        case.  We have had pamphlets sprung on us; some of the
    40        ones Mr. Rampton referred to when he was re-examining
    41        Professor Wheelock, we had not been provided copies even
    42        though Mr. Rampton had had them for a week.  There were
    43        the pig brochures that Mr. Rampton had four copies of and
    44        he said he had one in his boot but he could not manage to
    45        get one served on us.
    46
    47   MR. MORRIS:  The nutrition file has doubled in size over the
    48        holiday.
    49
    50   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Leave it there, because although I can 
    51        understand how one side or the other gets heated about 
    52        these things, I am totally disinterested in the argument. 
    53        I am not interested in beefing on one side or the other.
    54        I just want to get on with the case and be as efficient as
    55        we can, bearing in mind you are representing yourselves
    56        and you do not have a great team to help you.  So, I am
    57        not out of sympathy, but each time something goes wrong we
    58        have to learn something from it to try and avoid it
    59        happening again.
    60

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