Day 313 - 13 Dec 96 - Page 02

     
     1                                   Friday, 13th December 1996
     2
     3   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Mr. Morris, have you looked at the small
     4        bundle of correspondence which Mr. Rampton handed in the
     5        other day?
     6
     7   MS. STEEL:  I wanted to say something about that, actually.
     8
     9   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    10
    11   MR. RAMPTON:  Can I complete it, my Lord, the letter of the 20th
    12        September?
    13
    14   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    15
    16   MS. STEEL:   Before it is completed, if I find-----
    17
    18   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Hand that up to me.  I am certainly entitled
    19        to that.  That is in anyway (handed).  Yes.
    20
    21   MS. STEEL:   Yes.  Firstly, I do not really understand why the
    22        Plaintiffs want the letters handed in.  As I understand it,
    23        it is basically to say that we did not apologise and we,
    24        instead, fought the case.  Well, that must be completely
    25        obvious to anybody anyway so there is not much point in
    26        going in.
    27
    28        We are not happy for them to go in, since there are a
    29        number of things in there we have never seen before, and a
    30        large number of accusations in the Plaintiffs' letters that
    31        we did not accept.
    32
    33   MR. RAMPTON:  Can I intervene?  These letters were disclosed as
    34        item 49 in the Plaintiffs' first list of documents, on 11th
    35        March 1993.
    36
    37   MS. STEEL:   That is incorrect.  The attendance notes, for
    38        example, that are in there, we have never seen before, and
    39        not all of those, not all of the letters either, have we
    40        seen before.
    41
    42   MR. JUSTICE BELL: Well, I think I should be able to see any
    43        letter written by solicitors acting for you, any letter
    44        written by Barlow Lyde & Gilbert to solicitors acting for
    45        you unless it is said that it contains without prejudice
    46        material or it is without prejudice letter.  I do not think
    47        I should see any attendance notes.
    48
    49   MS. STEEL:   If I could just say, we have not had a chance to
    50        get legal advice on this.  It was sprung on us the other
    51        day.  We are not happy for them to go in because, as I say,
    52        there are a number of things.  We have never seen this,
    53        there are a number of things we have not seen before, there
    54        are a number of accusations about distribution of leaflets
    55        in the Plaintiffs' letters that we do not accept.  And it
    56        is too late for these to be entered as evidence, that there
    57        are matters we would want to contradict and other
    58        statements in the letters that we want to explain, and, as
    59        we all know, the evidence is now closed.
    60