Day 249 - 14 May 96 - Page 04
1 cross-examination.
2
3 MS. STEEL: OK. It is hearsay anyway, so it would be
4 irrelevant -- or inadmissible, sorry. The final point
5 I want to object to is paragraph 11, which is purely and
6 simply comment, and it is really, I think, that is
7 something you say is a matter for you to decide and
8 obviously I dispute that which is said on that paragraph.
9 It is just opinion; it is not a matter of evidence. And
10 also I was only asking questions at the time, I was not
11 giving evidence anyway so...
12
13 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
14
15 MS. STEEL: That is it in terms of objections.
16
17 MR. RAMPTON: Can I take that last point first, my Lord? I have
18 in mind ----
19
20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I need not trouble you about that because it
21 seems to me it is of potential relevance to Mr. Nicholson's
22 reasons for giving a more detailed statement. I do not
23 take it as any evidence of whether Ms. Steel had in fact
24 changed her case; it is not admissible on that basis, but
25 merely on his perception of what had happened as a reason
26 for giving subsequent detailed statements.
27
28 MS. STEEL: Our witnesses have not been allowed to give things
29 about their perception of the evidence in the case. They
30 have been prevented from doing so because it said it is
31 something it is to be determined by you.
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You must follow the formalities of our court
34 procedure, you are well acquainted with them now.
35
36 MR. RAMPTON: I am entirely in your Lordship's hands over that.
37 I do not mind one way or the other. What I do say is
38 this: if Mr. Nicholson's impression of what Ms. Steel was
39 putting to Mr. Carroll in cross-examination and, indeed, my
40 own and everybody else's on this side of the court, is
41 wrong, then I need to be told so, because it does appear
42 from the way she cross-examined Mr. Carroll that she is now
43 making a different case.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not want to get involved with that.
46
47 MR. RAMPTON: I will leave that. Can I go backwards, my Lord,
48 to the bit in brackets in paragraph 9? I hold no brief for
49 that bit in brackets. The reason it is there, your
50 Lordship may remember at the outset of the case, I forget
51 whether it was when the case started or at an interlocutory
52 stage, Ms. Steel made a great fuss about the name Webster
53 appearing on the writ. That is only there because it
54 explains how that happened, but I have no feelings about
55 that at all one way or the other. It is merely part of the
56 background. It is, of course, hearsay, as indeed in all
57 likelihood, to some extent at least, is (ii) on page 4.
58 The reason that is there is not so as to prove the fact
59 from which it follows that it is not hearsay since it is
60 not advanced to prove the fact of what Mr. Nicholson was