Day 172 - 12 Oct 95 - Page 09
1 A. No.
2
3 MR. RAMPTON: I do not think we can have that, my Lord.
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: No. You cannot cross-examine your own
6 witness.
7
8 MR. MORRIS: I am only asking him a question.
9
10 MR. RAMPTON: He has answered the question.
11
12 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You are testing what he has written in the
13 letter.
14
15 MR. RAMPTON: Mr. Morris is stuck with the answer that it is an
16 honest letter.
17
18 MR. MORRIS: I am asking what it means. I am asking him to say
19 what did he mean by that.
20
21 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes. In my view, you have embarked on
22 cross-examination on the letter. If you want, quite
23 regardless of the letter, to ask him what he thinks about
24 their employment practices and you have given notice to
25 Mr. Rampton and those who represent McDonald's, then
26 certainly embark on it, but do not cross-examine on the
27 letter. He is your own witness. You are in the lucky
28 position that Ms. Steel can do it if she wants, because she
29 is another party, but you cannot.
30
31 MR. MORRIS: When we spoke to him beforehand, he said that was
32 not applied to their employment practices. So, I mean, how
33 is that put to the witness without -----
34
35 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is very difficult, quite frankly. It is
36 difficult because you are put in the position where you are
37 cross-examining your witness and inviting him to retract
38 something in a letter which ---
39
40 MR. MORRIS: He is not retracting it.
41
42 MR. JUSTICE BELL: -- he has said is an honest letter. It is out
43 now. But what I do not think you can do, unless you give
44 some notice of it, is go on, if you had it in mind to, and
45 say: "What do you not like about McDonald's?"
46
47 MR. MORRIS: We only got this letter a couple of days ago, so it
48 was difficult to prepare a -----
49
50 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But it is not based on the letter. You are
51 going on now -- I mean, we could put the letter on one side
52 now. You are showing signs of embarking on something
53 completely fresh, that is, what Mr. Pattinson thinks of
54 McDonald's labour relations. As I am sure you appreciate
55 yourself, if you think about it, if we were going to hear
56 Mr. Pattinson about that -- and, for all I know, he might
57 qualify as an expert witness, with all his experience --
58 then we would expect a statement saying what he thought
59 about McDonald's labour practices and why he thought that.
60
