Day 249 - 14 May 96 - Page 04

     
     1        cross-examination.
     2
     3   MS. STEEL:   OK.  It is hearsay anyway, so it would be
     4        irrelevant -- or inadmissible, sorry.  The final point
     5        I want to object to is paragraph 11, which is purely and
     6        simply comment, and it is really, I think, that is
     7        something you say is a matter for you to decide and
     8        obviously I dispute that which is said on that paragraph.
     9        It is just opinion; it is not a matter of evidence.  And
    10        also I was only asking questions at the time, I was not
    11        giving evidence anyway so...
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
    14
    15   MS. STEEL:   That is it in terms of objections.
    16
    17   MR. RAMPTON:  Can I take that last point first, my Lord?  I have
    18        in mind ----
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I need not trouble you about that because it
         seems to me it is of potential relevance to Mr. Nicholson's
    22        reasons for giving a more detailed statement.  I do not
    23        take it as any evidence of whether Ms. Steel had in fact
    24        changed her case; it is not admissible on that basis, but
    25        merely on his perception of what had happened as a reason
    26        for giving subsequent detailed statements.
    27
    28   MS. STEEL:   Our witnesses have not been allowed to give things
    29        about their perception of the evidence in the case.  They
    30        have been prevented from doing so because it said it is
    31        something it is to be determined by you.
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You must follow the formalities of our court
    34        procedure, you are well acquainted with them now.
    35
    36   MR. RAMPTON:  I am entirely in your Lordship's hands over that.
    37        I do not mind one way or the other.  What I do say is
    38        this:  if Mr. Nicholson's impression of what Ms. Steel was
    39        putting to Mr. Carroll in cross-examination and, indeed, my
    40        own and everybody else's on this side of the court, is
         wrong, then I need to be told so, because it does appear
    42        from the way she cross-examined Mr. Carroll that she is now
    43        making a different case.
    44
    45   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I do not want to get involved with that.
    46
    47   MR. RAMPTON:  I will leave that.  Can I go backwards, my Lord,
    48        to the bit in brackets in paragraph 9?  I hold no brief for
    49        that bit in brackets.  The reason it is there, your
    50        Lordship may remember at the outset of the case, I forget 
    51        whether it was when the case started or at an interlocutory 
    52        stage, Ms. Steel made a great fuss about the name Webster 
    53        appearing on the writ.  That is only there because it
    54        explains how that happened, but I have no feelings about
    55        that at all one way or the other.  It is merely part of the
    56        background.  It is, of course, hearsay, as indeed in all
    57        likelihood, to some extent at least, is (ii) on page 4.
    58        The reason that is there is not so as to prove the fact
    59        from which it follows that it is not hearsay since it is
    60        not advanced to prove the fact of what Mr. Nicholson was