Day 172 - 12 Oct 95 - Page 19

     
     1
     2   MR. MORRIS:  Karen Anstee will be the logical one, number 1 in
     3        the section of the Civil Evidence Act statements.
     4
     5   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, I do have two short things to say about
     6        this statement.  So far as possible, I have confined my
     7        objections to those passages in the statement that are
     8        quite obviously either hearsay or speculation on the part
     9        of the witness.  There are some passages, as your Lordship
    10        noticed yesterday, which are very likely hearsay, but one
    11        cannot be absolutely certain.
    12
    13   MR. JUSTICE BELL: No.  I only want to exclude, as you have
    14        obviously appreciated from what you have just said, that
    15        which you contend is clearly inadmissible.
    16
    17   MR. RAMPTON:  For the rest, I would submit to your Lordship, if
    18        it matters at the end of the case, that their quality as
    19        evidence is not very great, but -----
    20
    MR. JUSTICE BELL: That is another matter.
    22
    23   MR. RAMPTON:  That is another matter.  But for the bits that are
    24        not clearly hearsay, my Lord, the first part of
    25        Miss Anstee's statement to which I would take an objection,
    26        as I say it is quite obviously hearsay, is towards the
    27        bottom of page 2; it is the last sentence of the
    28        penultimate paragraph.
    29
    30   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Let me just read that.
    31
    32   MR. RAMPTON:  One probably ought to read the whole paragraph.
    33
    34   MR. MORRIS:  Starting "The meeting"?
    35
    36   MR. JUSTICE BELL: No -- "As an employee".
    37
    38   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.
    39
    40   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   What is the objection?
    41
    42   MR. RAMPTON:  She cannot possibly know what they ate outside the
    43        restaurant.  That can only be that they have told her that
    44        they do not eat anything but McDonald's food.
    45
    46   MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not know.  She may have associated with
    47        them sufficiently to feel she could draw that conclusion.
    48
    49   MR. RAMPTON:  She would have to associate with them an awful
    50        lot. 
    51 
    52   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Well, maybe.  You may be right about that. 
    53
    54   MR. RAMPTON:  I do not want to take an awful lot of time over
    55        it.
    56
    57   MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not going to deter you from making the
    58        objections, because there may be matters which are
    59        absolutely clearly inadmissible and then there is no
    60        benefit in reading them out in public.  So what I propose