Day 091 - 17 Feb 95 - Page 04

     
     1        enquiries of the Defendants' witnesses whether they are
     2        actually going to come to court.  Unhappily, and arguably
     3        in breach of the rules, only three out of something like 31
     4        of the Defendants' witness statements on that topic has got
     5        an address on it at all, so we cannot write to them and we
     6        cannot telephone them.
     7
     8        What I would ask your Lordship to do is order the
     9        Defendants to supply the addresses and telephone numbers in
    10        good time so that we can make our own enquiries.
    11
    12   MS. STEEL:  This matter has some history actually but, firstly,
    13        I think the Plaintiffs should say what the name of the
    14        person is who they have referred to so that we are in a
    15        position to rebut that if that is the case.
    16
    17   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I do not want to get involved in the argument
    18        now.  I just wanted to know what the ----
    19
    20   MS. STEEL:  The other thing I wanted to mention was that -----
    21
    22   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Just pause a moment, let me make a note.  So,
    23        you are not suggesting that in relation to that body of
    24        witnesses the normal order should be reversed and they
    25        should go first?
    26
    27   MR. RAMPTON:  No, my Lord.  Can I keep that in reserve?  What
    28        I would like to do is what any litigant will normally be
    29        able to do because the witness statement must have the
    30        address on it.  We would like to be able to make our own
    31        enquiries of these people -- there is no property in
    32        witnesses -- and to ask them.
    33
    34        If we cannot find them because there is not time or because
    35        we cannot find them, then I may come back to your Lordship
    36        and invite your Lordship to say that, in those
    37        circumstances, the Defendants' witnesses on those specific
    38        issues detailed complaints in various places over a period
    39        of time, those witnesses should go first and I should be
    40        allowed to call rebuttal evidence if and as necessary.
    41
    42   MS. STEEL:  My Lord, what I wanted to say is that Mr. Rampton is
    43        actually wrong.  We made an application not to disclose the
    44        addresses and phone numbers of our witnesses in front of
    45        Sir Michael Davies on the grounds that we were worried that
    46        they would be intimidated by the Plaintiffs into not coming
    47        into court to give evidence.  The Plaintiffs did not object
    48        to that order being made and that is the position.  If we
    49        are going to take this further, obviously, I need to get
    50        the paper work for that and the relevant order, but that is 
    51        definitely what happened. 
    52 
    53        Perhaps Mr. Rampton does not know about that because
    54        Mr. Shields was dealing with the case at that time.
    55
    56   MR. MORRIS:  We did say at that hearing that one of our
    57        witnesses felt pressurised, and it may be the same person
    58        that the Plaintiffs have just raised was a female person.
    59        In the light of that and other things that can be gone into
    60        later, we would take an extremely protective and strong