Day 106 - 23 Mar 95 - Page 27
1 be taken to be the food poisoning matter. It is the
2 question of residues in meat for human consumption. That
3 one can isolate as a topic of its own. You can subdivide
4 it into three, if you wish: Antibiotic, hormones,
5 pesticides and you can add, if you like, herbicides which
6 you introduced in cross-examination.
7
8 MR. MORRIS: Yes.
9
10 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But those specific matters.
11
12 MR. MORRIS: I think herbicides are considered to be under the
13 umbrella of pesticides.
14
15 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Maybe that will be part of it.
16
17 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, can I go a little further than that?
18 Absence of notice of this volte-face (which it
19 unquestionably is, and I notice Mr. North's second
20 statement was served in January of this year and there is
21 no mention of this volte-face even in that statement), I am
22 not in a position to cross-examine Mr. North on this
23 topic.
24
25 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No, of course you are not.
26
27 MR. RAMPTON: I have not had any evidence about it. I shall
28 very likely ask your Lordship's leave to call rebuttal
29 evidence if this evidence continues now.
30
31 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. What I suggest you do is if you go on
32 with this, I am not going to stop it because it is on a
33 precise aspect of the case which relates to a specific
34 allegation made in the leaflet, and is part of your case in
35 relation to food poisoning, but whereas the statement which
36 you have served was the opposite of justification of what
37 is in the leaflet, it was contradiction of what was in the
38 leaflet, the evidence which Mr. North has just given
39 appears to be evidence in support of the justification. It
40 clearly relies upon scientific papers.
41
42 In my view, if I am to attach weight to Mr. North's
43 evidence on this, one must look to see what the scientific
44 papers are upon which he bases his evidence. If the
45 Plaintiffs wish to call evidence in rebuttal of Mr. North's
46 evidence as it stands at the end of tomorrow, then I will
47 give them leave to do so.
48
49 So press on on that basis.
50
51 MS. STEEL: I just wanted to say since what I said has been
52 called into question, as an example, when Mr. Oakley was
53 giving evidence on day 59 all sorts of the things were
54 brought up about rearing and slaughter. I did say at the
55 time there is nothing about this in the statement. Whilst
56 I accept that, perhaps, because we did not take an
57 objection, nothing came of it, I do object strongly to the
58 hypocrisy of the Plaintiffs in continuingly doing this sort
59 of thing themselves but then objecting when we do it.
60
