Day 030 - 03 Oct 94 - Page 15

     
     1
     2   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No, but at the end of the day I will have to
     3        sit down and see what you actually challenged in
     4        cross-examination or what any witness of yours said in
     5        contradiction.
     6
     7   MR. MORRIS:  What I mean is, at the end of the day, if a
     8        statement is taken as read, does that mean that if we want
     9        to challenge a particular reference, we have to formally
    10        have said at some stage:  "We want to challenge the
    11        interpretation of that particular reference", or does that
    12        only come up if the Plaintiffs, for example, actually
    13        bring up the reference during the evidence?
    14
    15   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No.  Suppose someone said:  "A diet high in
    16        saturated fat is a cause of cancer of the breast" and then
    17        had a reference, if that was being challenged I would
    18        expect some questioning of the witness as to the basis of
    19        that, whether by asking him to look at the actual
    20        reference and suggesting it did not say what he thought it
         said, or that since that paper was written the same author
    22        had come to a different view.  Those are just by ways of
    23        example.
    24
    25        If that did not happen, and yet the statement was
    26        challenged, I would expect to find somewhere in the other
    27        party's evidence a statement from one of their witnesses
    28        saying something contradictory of it.  Then at the end of
    29        the day I would have to decide which view I preferred.
    30
    31   MR. MORRIS:  We are a little bit nervous about this practice
    32        that is creeping in of taking a statement as read, which
    33        is very helpful because it does move things on in some
    34        ways and things do not get missed out.  But what we are
    35        unsure of is that if we agree to a statement being taken
    36        as read from the Plaintiffs, and we do not challenge one
    37        of the, maybe, 85 references, then at the end of the day
    38        the Plaintiffs can get up and say:  "Well, we put forward
    39        six or seven references to prove that point", and if we
    40        did not formally challenge each particular reference, then
         they are taken as evidence.
    42
    43   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  No.  I do not think you need concern
    44        yourself about that.  What you have to make sure is that
    45        the statement by the witness which came immediately before
    46        the reference has been challenged in some way, either by
    47        cross-examining the witness or calling your own witness to
    48        give a contrary view or, hopefully, both.
    49
    50        I do not want to prolong the proceedings, but if I might 
    51        suggest I will take the statements as read, so you need 
    52        not worry that if you fail to ask Mr. Cannon to repeat 
    53        something in his statement it has been omitted from his
    54        evidence altogether, but I suggest you take him to any
    55        matters which you particularly want to underline.  If that
    56        is the whole of his statement, so be it.  This is an
    57        important area of the case.
    58
    59   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.  Thank you.  (To the witness)  Just one
    60        thing, you are also the author of this work, "Food and