Day 030 - 03 Oct 94 - Page 04
1 MR. RAMPTON: So be it. I have a number of comments to make
2 about the Defendants' conduct in this regard and I shall
3 make them, unless your Lordship tells me not to, if I may
4 in a moment. But your Lordship will see that Professor
5 Crawford's new statement is ten pages long as opposed to
6 the page -----
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not have that, I do not think. (Handed)
9
10 MS. STEEL: The other paper that was handed up was a loose
11 document he referred to in his previous statement.
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Are you talking about Professor Crawford
14 now?
15
16 MS. STEEL: Yes, the NATO paper he referred to in his first
17 statement.
18
19 MR. RAMPTON: Yes. Some of the material referred to by both
20 Mr. Cannon and Professor Crawford we have seen before; a
21 good deal of it, however, we have not. In fact, with its
22 appendices Professor Crawford's new statement is 15 pages
23 long.
24
25 My Lord, I observe that the original statements of
26 Mr. Cannon and Mr. Crawford, which your Lordship has read,
27 were both served in July 1993. The Plaintiffs' expert
28 evidence on this topic -- by "this topic" I mean
29 specifically the relationship between diet and the
30 aetiology of cancer -- Professor Wheelock's first report
31 was July 19th or June or July 1993; his second and third
32 and Dr. Arnott's first in January 1994. Professor
33 Wheelock gave the whole of his evidence in July 1994;
34 Dr. Arnott (who is the cancer specialist) gave
35 evidence-in-chief in July 1994. There then followed a
36 break of six weeks. He was cross-examined on 12th and
37 13th September 1994 and none, or virtually none, I should
38 say, of this new material (and a lot of it is not only
39 expanded in form but new in substance) was put to him.
40
41 What the reasons for that may be, I am not greatly
42 concerned to enquire. I do observe that if anybody in
43 this case is pleased to play what Mr. Morris has described
44 as lawyer's tricks, it certainly is not the Plaintiffs.
45 What I do say is this -- I do urge it with some feeling --
46 I could cross-examine both Mr. Cannon and Professor
47 Crawford on the basis of the short amount of time that
48 I have had to consider this new material over the
49 weekend. In fact, I did not get these things until last
50 night.
51
52 In the interests of my client, however, or my clients,
53 I should say, it seems to us all on this side of the court
54 that would be an irresponsible if not a negligent thing to
55 do. It is necessary, we believe, and if your Lordship
56 agrees, that our experts should have a chance to consider
57 this new material. I say that for this reason,
58 principally, that both these statements are very
59 considerably more positive or emphatic on the relationship
60 between diet and cancer than either of the two original
