Day 048 - 08 Nov 94 - Page 02
1 Tuesday, 8th November 1994.
2
3 MS. STEEL: We are concerned about what happened yesterday when,
4 rather than lose face and admit that the Plaintiffs had
5 failed to serve the references that Mr. Miles had mentioned
6 in his statement, Mr. Rampton just missed out large
7 sections of his statement which, apart from making life
8 difficult for us -- because we based our questions on the
9 whole statement, and it could put us completely out of
10 kilter, as it were -- we were concerned about how
11 Mr. Miles's evidence would now be treated, because he did
12 make some assertions that, generally, there was not any
13 concern among parents, and things like that, but he has not
14 provided any references to back that up. So we wanted to
15 know whether that was just going to be treated as his own
16 personal opinion?
17
18 I mean, it just seems that a lot of the time there is a big
19 fuss made about us getting references here to back up what
20 our experts are saying, but the Plaintiffs do not seem to
21 think that the same applies to them, and we kind of feel
22 that it is -- well, we are not sure what the position is,
23 and we are concerned about it, really.
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, the position is simply this, that if a
26 witness relies, in support of the statement they make, upon
27 a paper written by somebody else or research carried out by
28 somebody else, then that paper or research should be
29 produced, at least if the other side asks for it, so that
30 the other side can contest the validity of the statement
31 which is made.
32
33 If the witness purports to have particular expertise or
34 experience which enables him or her, he says, to state that
35 such and such is so, then one hears that, and it is then a
36 question of what, if any, weight should be attached to it.
37
38 Mr. Miles, it seemed to me, was generally making statements
39 from the basis of what he said was his experience and, I
40 can see, from what the Plaintiffs will argue is his
41 particular expertise and experience.
42
43 I remember one respect in which he added to that was to say
44 that he did see details of complaints and adjudications,
45 and he made some comment on their numbers and their kind,
46 although I cannot remember the particular detail.
47
48 MS. STEEL: I mean, that is one of the things, you see, because
49 his expertise, if anything, is really on the industry side
50 of things, and if he is asserting that a certain number of
51 complaints were made, but most of them were not about
52 parents complaining about the effects on their children,
53 then -- well, there are two things to that. I mean,
54 firstly, we feel that if he is going to assert that, he
55 should be providing those figures, statistics; and,
56 secondly, the fact that no complaints are made, or that
57 there are only a limited number of complaints, does not
58 mean that if you surveyed parents they would not feel
59 strongly about it.
60
