Day 122 - 05 May 95 - Page 14
1 this: It is Mrs. Brinley-Codd's recollection that in the
2 course of interlocutory applications for discovery by the
3 Defendants, in which, naturally enough, they made reference
4 to the version which had been served, that is to say,
5 No. 1, the longer version, because paragraph numbers were
6 different necessarily -- No. 2 stops at 58 and I think
7 No. 1 goes on to the 60s, and there were some references to
8 paragraphs which were no longer in what I call the revised
9 version -- it was realised (and Mrs. Brinley-Codd thinks it
10 was mentioned to your Lordship at that time) that there was
11 a discrepancy in the two statements. That we will have to
12 check; we have not time to do it now.
13
14 MR. JUSTICE BELL: If indeed it is worth doing.
15
16 MR. RAMPTON: Then, when, a year later, May 1994, I think it
17 was, and before the trial began, it might even have been
18 June, the trial bundles were made up, the correct or the
19 second version was the one which went into the trial
20 bundle.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Can we have Mr. Nicholson back?
23
24 MR. RAMPTON: I should add Mrs. Brinley-Codd wishes to extend
25 her apologies to the court for what happened.
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is not necessary, because that sort of
28 thing happens in the best families, but what I would still
29 like is some check, for whatever reason it may be, where,
30 if at all, statements which, even by a word, differ from
31 the ones which were originally served on the Defendants
32 have gone into a bundle. If it is discovered, or thought
33 that there are, or may be such ones, then a list be given
34 to the Defendants. If it is thought that there just are
35 not any, then so be it.
36
37 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, as I said before, the only way of being
38 certain of that is to look at the statements which the
39 Defendants have actually got. The probability is that
40 I have, as I have in this case, the same ones as they have,
41 because I started work as soon as I got the draft.
42
43 MR. MORRIS: Could I make one point -- it is not a cheap point
44 -- which is that on 19th September last year -- page 3 of
45 the transcript -- there was a complaint about us, about the
46 statement that had been changed for Professor Walker. You
47 said to Mr. Rampton: "Do you know whether any of the
48 statements which have gone into the bundles are different
49 to the ones which were served?" Mr. Rampton said: "No,
50 I do not know. We will certainly check that".
51
52 The point I would like to make is one that would help us
53 greatly, because we have been criticised any number of
54 times by Mr. Rampton throughout this case, and probably
55 before it started. I cannot remember about that. We do
56 not have any legal helpers except once in a blue moon.
57 I would like maybe Mr. Rampton to think about it in future
58 if he is going to make criticism; if he could just not make
59 criticisms of us in the way we have organised, or tried to
60 organise, our defence for the case because, even with a
