COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM CANTERBURY COUNTY COURT
(HIS HONOUR JUDGE POULTON)
Strand London WC2 Wednesday, 16th May 2001 |
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B e f o r e :
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TERESA ELLEN BRIGHT | ||
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STEWART JAMES PITTOCK |
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Smith Bernal Reporting Limited
180 Fleet Street, London EC4A 2HD
Telephone No: 0171-421 4040 Fax No: 0171-831 8838
(Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
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Crown Copyright ©
Wednesday, 16th May 2001
"I am quite unable to accept I am afraid that this Claimant has been disabled in the way in which she contends. Of course I am influenced, as the Doctors are in these proceedings, by the video."
"... it was unfortunate that when Dr Taor gave his evidence she was unable to be here. On that occasion I was faced with an application made on her behalf by her husband that the application be adjourned. I declined to do that partly because if it was adjourned Mr Taor would have to have come back and a date to get him back would have been way in the future. It is always difficult to set up cases in which there are a lot of Doctors and this case certainly had a lot of doctors. That would have meant a long adjournment in a case that was already getting on for seven and a half years. So I declined that adjournment and it did mean that Dr Taor was not cross-examined. If there had been a serious disagreement between the doctors on the two sides I do not think I could have continued with the case but in fact there was not a serious disagreement between the Doctors and the two sides."