Day 097 - 06 Mar 95 - Page 13
1 particular time to say: "Well, no, in fact it was not so;
2 this cannot be right for the following reasons". Once one
3 goes into that, it is an average of two days, some may be
4 quicker, some, I fear, may be longer. One has learnt to
5 one's cost in the past during the course of this case that
6 it simply is not prudent to underestimate or to risk
7 underestimating the length of the witnesses.
8
9 My Lord, I have said that, but I do add this, for a reason
10 which I outlined to your Lordship the other day, it is our
11 fear that we shall call all of those 16 witnesses who deal
12 with all the Defendants' allegations only to find that a
13 proportion, at least, of the Defendants' employment
14 witnesses on specific matters do not appear in court.
15
16 We have a proposal to make -- I do not know whether it will
17 appeal to your Lordship -- it seems to us that it is for
18 that reason a fair proposal. The Defendants, for good or
19 ill, are not willing to let us have the addresses of the
20 witnesses so we cannot write to them to find out whether
21 they are happy to come to court.
22
23 MR. MORRIS: We are happy to pass on letters.
24
25 MR. RAMPTON: Yes. What we have done is to draft a form, which
26 I would not dream of putting forward without your
27 Lordship's approval, which I hope is entirely neutral.
28 I will just leave your Lordship to read it, if I may.
29
30 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. Is this my copy?
31
32 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, please. What we propose to do with that, my
33 Lord, is this, to give -- I think there are 40 witnesses on
34 the Defendants' list of employment witnesses, not including
35 the so-called experts, of course, I mean witnesses of fact
36 -- 40 copies of this to the Defendants together with 80
37 stamped but not addressed envelopes; the intention being
38 that each witness should get this form with an envelope
39 stamped and addressed by the Defendants for return to
40 them.
41
42 We had hoped that your Lordship would say, if your Lordship
43 approved this course, that these letters should go out
44 during the course of next week, otherwise of course if the
45 Defendants sit on them nothing will be achieved or, at any
46 rate, within seven days of receipt of the stamped letters
47 and the forms which can be done today, I suppose.
48
49 What I would then ask your Lordship to do, within three
50 weeks, seven plus 14, is to ask the Defendants what
51 response they have had. According to that response, of
52 course, if it was 100 per cent who state: "Yes, we are all
53 coming", no problem arises, we then know we have to run the
54 full course, but if either there is a proportion of
55 negative responses or no response at all, or both, then
56 what we would ask your Lordship to do is to say that our
57 witnesses in respect of those witnesses of the Defendants
58 who have either said "no" or have not responded should be
59 held in reserve to be allowed to give their evidence in
60 rebuttal if, contrary to expectation, the particular
