Day 306 - 26 Nov 96 - Page 05
1 MR. MORRIS: I do not know. It seems to me that is the only
2 explanation I can give, because the statement clearly
3 refers to contemporaneous notes.
4
5 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I am not taking it as an allegation against
6 Mrs. Brinley-Codd. I am taking it as an allegation against
7 Mr. Russell.
8
9 MS. STEEL: I think that is more likely the case, personally.
10
11 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There is absolutely nothing upon which to
12 found any kind of suggestion that a solicitor of the
13 Supreme Court has lost them.
14
15 MR. MORRIS: It must be that he took notes, as given in
16 evidence by Ms. Laporte, because he could not possibly have
17 had photographic recall of the kind of detail which he put
18 in his notes, in his report, without taking contemporaneous
19 notes. But, for some reason, the notes disappeared at some
20 stage and we would say, therefore, the report is unreliable
21 to that extent. He did not actually deny taking notes. He
22 says that he would not have taken notes because he would
23 have thought it inappropriate to do so. (Page 62, line
24 10). It goes a little bit like that. He sort of said he
25 did not, but then he said he would not. In the middle of
26 page 64, apparently what happened seems to be that
27 contemporaneous notes were written, although he is not
28 admitting that. Then there were his notes that were
29 submitted in written form, in type form, and then a report
30 was made by the firm based upon that and then the
31 solicitors made the statement based upon that.
32
33 So, here we have a half-way where things can get changed
34 and I think this is something that is a general point about
35 the unsafety of relying on notes that are clearly not even
36 refreshing memory, but they are just substitute for memory.
37
38 In the middle of page 65, line 23 he says: "... I am
39 pretty sure I would not have taken notes at that meeting";
40 not that he did not. He says at line 49: "I am certain
41 that I would not have had a notebook there. Question:
42 Because it was not normal practice? Answer: Yes." That
43 was basically the end of that. He assumed that he did not
44 take the notes. Maybe he could not remember. At page 68,
45 line 28, I asked him about has he got extraordinary total
46 recall memory and he says, "No, I have not". He said that
47 it does occur to him that he took lots of leaflets. That
48 is the bottom of page 68. That might be partially
49 explained how he could remember so much detail, but in fact
50 none of the leaflets mentioned the kind of detail that he
51 had in his notes or in his report.
52
53 He said that all the leaflets he had picked up would have
54 been attached to his report (page 69) and it went to the
55 solicitors -- no, I am sorry, I said that. He said at
56 page 70, line 20: "I would have picked up as much as I
57 could." That is regarding the different leaflets on the
58 table. So, it is quite possible, actually, there were
59 other leaflets that never got attached to his statement.
60 We do not know, because we have not got any of the
