Margaret Goodall cross-examined, 14th March 1990

MALCOLM v. THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
IN THE HIGH COURT OF JUSTICE, CHANCERY DIVISION Case No. CH1986 M 7710

The Royal Courts of Justice, before MR G. LIGHTMAN QC

Mr ANDREW MALCOLM, the PLAINTIFF, in person.

Mr MARK WARBY (Instructed by Dallas Brett, Pembroke House, Pembroke Street, Oxford OX1 1BL) appeared for the DEFENDANTS.

Official transcription by Palantype Ltd, 2 Frith Road, Croydon CR0 1TA

"Margaret joined OUP in October 1967 and worked for The Secretary Colin Roberts for seven years until 1974, then for George Richardson for 14 years, five years for Sir Roger Elliott, five years for James Arnold-Baker, and finally three-and-a-half years for me. (From left above: Richardson, Elliott, Reece, Arnold-Baker.) She also saw four chairmen of the Finance Committee: J.H.C. Thompson, Sir Roger Elliott, Sir Keith Thomas, and Sue Iversen. She looked after 68 Delegates of the Press, although it was not until 1987 that she was actually allowed into the Delegates' room to take the minutes herself. Her career spanned virtually all the changes that have gone to make the modern Press: the Waldock Report (click), which was in process when Margaret started; the closure of the Wolvercote Paper Mill; the closure of the Printing Works; and the move from London. There have inevitably been some difficult times over the years, and when I asked Margaret what had been her worst her answer was being questioned by Mr Andrew Malcolm in the High Court. It must be said that the transcript shows that she acquitted herself extremely well."

MISS J.M. GOODALL - sworn

MISS J.M. GOODALL examined by MR WARBY

Warby: My Lord, could I ask you for the same direction in relation to Miss Goodall's statement - that it should stand as her evidence-in-chief?

Lightman: Yes. Pages 69 and 70.

Warby: Pages 69 and 70.

Miss Goodall, in front of you you should see a blue bundle marked "C" on the spine. If you would open that at page 69 you will find a statement headed "Witness statement of Jean Margaret Goodall", and on page 70 a signature. That is your signature?

Goodall: It is indeed.

Warby: I have only a few questions to ask you. Would you look at the top of page 70. You are dealing there with the procedures in relation to the Delegates' meetings - books tabled at Delegates' meetings - and the second paragraph reads:

"Each General book title was not listed separately on the draft Agenda as it now is".

Goodall: As I said in another statement, I have been handling the affairs related to the Delegates' Agenda for a number of years, since 1967 in fact.

Warby: So would you or would you not have seen the documents that went to Delegates for meetings in 1985?

Goodall: Yes, I would have.

Warby: Can you recall whether there was any separate list of General book titles to be considered? That is, a list separate from the Agenda itself.

Goodall: There was no list separate from the Agenda.

Warby: Turning back to page 69, in the third paragraph you say you are responsible for collating the Agenda papers that go before the Delegates and for typing the Minutes.

Goodall: Yes.

Warby: The procedure for collating the papers and typing the Minutes has changed since 1985. Can you recall when that change took place? Or perhaps it took place over a period of time.

Goodall: The only change that there has been has been in the date for receiving the final papers. The procedure for circulating the draft Agenda has not changed.

Warby: Perhaps I could ask you a more specific question. We have seen you said that in 1985 each General book title was not listed separately on the draft Agenda as it now is. So between 1985 and today you are saying there has been a change in that respect?

Goodall: That procedure was changed in April 1989. From that date all General titles were listed specifically on the Agenda.

Warby: Before that date, how were the Delegates made aware of what General titles were put up for their consideration?

Goodall: The title "General Publications" appeared on each Agenda, Part 1, and editors who wished to submit proposals to the Delegates would give me, by the closing date for receipt of papers, a sheet of paper relating to each title they wished to put forward. I did not know about them in advance, but I included them in Agenda order with all the other papers that I received.

Warby: Turning back to page 70, the sixth paragraph down there is a paragraph starting "I did not attend Delegates' meetings in 1985" and then you describe how Minutes were taken and then passed on to you in the form of the Agenda with manuscript notes.

Goodall: Yes.

Warby: Then you go on in the next paragraph to describe how you compiled a document showing details of publishing proposals accepted at each meeting.

Goodall: Yes.

Warby: . Could you look at the red bundle and turn to page 111 [a computer printout]. Do you recognise that document?

Goodall: Yes.

Warby: . What is that?

Goodall: This is the list of acceptances, including the category - red, amber, green or whatever - into which the proposals fell. I compile one of these lists after every Delegates' meeting of all the books that were accepted at the meeting.

Warby: From what source did you get the information which you needed to compile this list?

Goodall: The notes that are sent to Delegates with their bundle of Agenda papers contains financial information about the colour - red, amber, green - the size of the investment, the year of publication and the subject category.

Warby: How were you able to determine which General books, for example, had been approved? Because you have explained that at this stage there was no list of General books on the Agenda. How were you able to determine which had been approved?

Goodall: There was a standard formula for categories of books that were not listed individually. The standard formula, in a Minute, was the list of titles tabled was approved. But if there were any queries or any rejections, the notes that I received from which I wrote the Minutes would list any particular exceptions, where more information was required or where a book had been turned down. So in compiling my list of General books, I would have included only the books under the category "the titles tabled were approved".

Lightman: I understand from your answer that when you refer to listed books approved you mean books in respect of which these various papers have been enclosed with the Agenda papers to the Delegates.

Goodall: The titles tabled - yes.

MISS J.M. GOODALL cross-examined by MR MALCOLM

Malcolm: Miss Goodall, if you would turn to page 69 of the blue file, your witness statement, you say you have held your post as secretary to the Secretary of the Delegates since 1967.

Goodall: Yes.

Malcolm: And I would imagine that there is nothing you do not know about - obviously we read it from the detail of your statement - there is no aspect of all this procedure that you do not know back to front.

Goodall: That is probably true.

Malcolm: It seems to me that trying to make sense of the two sets of procedures - at paragraph 8 on the next page you say:

"In 1985 the differences in procedure were as follows"

Goodall: I have already said that the procedure for listing General titles individually changed in April 1989. The only other changes were that in 1985 - paragraph 11 on page 70 - the deadline was 4 pm on Friday before the meeting. Since 1985, I think probably in 1987, the deadline changed to Thursday. In 1988 it changed to Wednesday.

Malcolm: Miss Goodall, may I interrupt. I think we shall get terribly bogged down in deadlines. I am not interested in the days.

Goodall: You were asking me about changes. Those are the only changes that have taken place.

Malcolm: What I am interested in is the procedure in 1985, obviously, and I think to get at that one has to put together some of the paragraphs on the first page with some of the paragraphs on the second page. If you could go to paragraph 4 and perhaps leave out the question of how many days elapsed between events, could you just take us through, in your own words, what happened. We are talking about how the Agenda papers that were ultimately were to go before the Delegates at the Delegates' meeting were compiled. Please just take us through your paragraph 4 as simply as you can.

Lightman: In relation to General books, presumably, we are only concerned with them.

Malcolm: In relation to General books.

Goodall: In relation to General books, the item on both the draft Agenda that is compiled at an early stage and in the final Agenda, General books appeared on the Agenda solely as General Publications. They were not listed individually.

Malcolm: Can I stop you, Miss Goodall. That is not what I am reading inparagraph 4. Just read it out without the days.

Goodall: A list of titles which had been proposed - yes.

Malcolm: Shall I read it for you?

Lightman: I can read the paragraph. What...

Malcolm: It seems to me, my Lord, that what is being suggested here is that... I will read it as simply as I can:

"Editors at OUP send me a list of titles which they propose to put before the Delegates for their approval."

Goodall: Yes we can, and this did not include General publications, because the procedure for them and for College publications was that they were not listed separately. Therefore there was no need for editors to send a list in advance.

Malcolm: So you are saying that that paragraph 4...

Goodall: It perhaps needs some amplification there.

Malcolm: This is not applicable to General books?

Goodall: No, not to General books.

Warby: My Lord, I hesitate to interrupt but it may be right to point out that the last sentence in paragraph 3 says this is the current procedure.

Lightman: That is in relation to books generally, but not General Books. Am I correct on that?

Goodall: Yes.

Malcolm: I assumed that this was a description of the procedure now, as Mr Warby has correctly pointed out, in relation to General Books, but now we are being told that the General Books procedure was quite different.

Goodall: Yes. I think the statement in paragraph 4 does apply to 1985 and to now. It should perhaps have been amplified that in 1985 General Books were not specified in advance.

Malcolm: So it applies to 1985 and to now, but not to General Books in either case?

Goodall: No. General Books are specified now. From April 1989 General Books are specified. I should have made it plain that they were not specified.

Malcolm: I submit, my Lord, that given that this whole action is about a General book and every inquiry of course has been about that, the procedure...

Lightman: I think this witness's evidence is reasonably clear, as I understand it, which is that in relation to General books, there was no list.

Malcolm: Well, I had understood paragraph 4, I thought, we were talking about...

Lightman: We follow that. The statement may be confusingly put together, but we have the witness's evidence, I think, quite clearly. You do get this confirmed by paragraph 9 of the statement on page 70, so I do not think there is any suggestion that this is a misleading statement by the witness.

Malcolm: Yes. I was basing my whole approach on the assumption that...

Lightman: I am concerned that we get moving. Somebody is going to have to pay the costs of all this.

Malcolm: Miss Goodall, I would like you now to turn to your affidavit. It is towards the back of the yellow file, at page 82. This was sworn by you on 31st January 1990, is that correct?

Goodall: Yes.

Malcolm: Just to quote the last sentence of paragraph 1:

"All facts and matters deposed to, are within my own knowledge."

Goodall: Yes.

Malcolm: Paragraph 2 reads:

"I am responsible for preparing the papers and Minutes for Delegates' meetings. I was responsible for preparing the papers and Minutes for the Delegates' meeting held on 23rd July 1985."

Goodall: Yes if by "preparing" is meant collecting them together and presenting them in a suitable form for circulation.

Malcolm: Preparing the Minutes for the Delegates' meeting held on 23 July 1985?

Goodall: Yes. I wrote the Minutes. As you know, I was not at the meeting but I wrote the Minutes from notes made by a senior colleague.

Malcolm: I was coming to that. Well, I will just have to go back now to your witness statement, and note that the witness statement was served just a few days ago, 6 March 1990. At paragraph 13 you say:

"I did not attend Delegates' meetings in 1985."

Goodall: That is true.

Malcolm: No meetings throughout 1985?

Goodall: No.

Malcolm:

"At that time a senior editor in the Academic Division of Oxford University Press, now retired, took the Minutes."

Goodall: Yes.

Malcolm: Miss Goodall, I put this statement and affidavit together, that have been signed within a month or two of each other, and I make no sense of them. Surely in your affidavit of 31st January you should have said that? You were deposing as to the minute-taking procedures of Delegates' meetings of 1985.

Lightman: I am not sure that she is saying that. What I think she says is that she prepared the papers for the meeting and she prepared the Minutes of the meetings.It does not say from what she prepared the Minutes.

Goodall: I physically prepared them.

Malcolm: May I ask who was the retired senior editor who took the Minutes?

Goodall: A Mr John Cordy.

Malcolm: Mr John Cordy. There is no John Cordy, as far as I recollect, listed amongst those present at the meeting in the heading to the Minutes.

Goodall: No. It is the custom to record only the Delegates concerned, not the officers of the Press who are also present.

[Sceptics may at some point wish to proceed to the New Evidence (green) File, page 65, the Cordy/Malcolm transcript. - A. M.]

Malcolm: You go on in that paragraph to say:

"The manner in which he took those minutes was that he would write notes on his copy of the typed Agenda."

Goodall: Yes.

Malcolm: Is that the typed Agenda that we have already seen in the red file?

Goodall: Yes.

Malcolm: On page 72 to 79?

Goodall: Yes, that is the Agenda.

Malcolm: Miss Goodall, evidently "not listed" as you have stated, a number of different kinds of publications were considered at that meeting under the sub-headings in Part I, such as College Publications, General Publications, Educational Publications and so on. Am I right?

Goodall: Yes.

Malcolm: These came to the meeting, you have said, as bundles of separate papers, one for each book. Is that right?

Goodall: Yes, that is right.

Malcolm: Now, Mr Cordy recorded all the decisions concerning which were accepted, which were deferred. Sir Roger Elliott has already stated that there were four options open to the Delegates on each title. Mr Cordy recorded those decisions - presumably in longhand - where?

Goodall: On the Agenda, beside each title, or each subject.

Malcolm: But we have no titles. We do have the Academic publications but we have no titles on the Agenda for the others.

Goodall: I did explain to you that the formula was that a list of titles tabled was approved so his practice was simply to tick, except where there were exceptions.

Malcolm: We are talking about General Books?

Goodall: General Books, yes. From his tick I used the usual formula "titles tabled were approved", except where there were qualifications, in which case he would write the qualifications beside each title.

Malcolm: You just said, Miss Goodall, that he ticked them off on a list.

Goodall: No I did not. I said that he would tick this item on the Agenda. He worked through all these items.

Malcolm: On the front page of the Agenda I see no book titles at all.

Goodall: No. I am referring to the heading, General Publications. It would have a tick, which meant all the books that went forward were approved, or he would specify where there had been qualifications in the case of individual books. So in this particular instance - because you have the Minutes also - he would have made notes, indicated books that were deferred or rejected.

Malcolm: So he would have written in longhand the titles alongside?

Goodall: That is right, yes.

Lightman: He would have written the titles alongside of those in which there was not a simple approval. For example, at page 80 in relation to The New Oxford Book of Modern Verse he would presumably have written "deferred"?

Goodall: That is right.

Lightman: And in relation to the Concise Dictionaries there is a reference to taking control to prevent overlapping. Otherwise, if the answer was the General Publications were approved, he would just put a general tick?

Goodall: That is right.

Malcolm: And so his page 72 would then come back to you, with a load of handwriting down the righthand side, setting out the various decisions and you would then, from that, type up the Minutes?

Goodall: Yes. That is right.

Malcolm: Mr Cordy did this throughout 1985?

Goodall: Yes.

Malcolm: You were taking time off or whatever during that time?

Goodall: No, that was the regular procedure. I have not until more recently been to the meetings myself.

Malcolm: At this point, my Lord, I would like to exhibit one of the documents that Mr Shaw promised me yesterday, which he delivered, and for which I thank him.

Malcolm: This is the Agenda of the Delegates' meeting held on Tuesday 30th April 1985, (and 14th May 1985) when Mr Cordy would have been taking the Minutes, is that right?

Goodall: Yes.

Lightman: Can I just check; 30th April 1985, 14th May 1985. We had better add these to the red file. Instead of having them as exhibits, shall we add them as merely additional documents to the red bundle as, say, 149 and consecutively? Does that seem sensible to you, Mr Malcolm?

Malcolm: Yes.

Lightman: The other document referred to earlier, the extracts from the Minute Book, I think ought to be added too with appropriate numbers. Can I leave it to your solicitors to do that and to make sure the relevant inserts go into my red file as well.

Malcolm: I do not know if Mr Shaw still has the top copy which he showed me yesterday. I do not know if Miss Goodall has seen that paper, but on my copy of it - save for I think two entries concerning Delegates who could not attend - there is not a single pen stroke of handwriting.

Goodall: No.

Malcolm: And yet you have just...

Lightman: May I just ask the witness so I can get this clear - you were given the copy of the Agenda, on which these marks were made and then prepared your Minutes?

Goodall: Yes, my Lord.

Lightman: What did you do with the copy that had been marked?

Goodall: I threw it away. It does say that in my statement. Having prepared the Minutes I gave them back to Mr Cordy for him to look through them in detail to make sure that my transcriptions were correct and then either he or I threw the annotated Agenda away.

Malcolm: Miss Goodall, you just used the word "annotated" - you threw the annotated Agenda away. Is this a reference to paragraph 5 of your witness statement, page 69 in the blue file?

Goodall: No. It is mentioned in paragraph 13 on page 70.

Malcolm:

"I would throw away his copy of the Agenda with his notes on it."

Goodall: Yes.

Malcolm: I think we have just seen the top copy of that Agenda with no notes on it.

Goodall: That was not the Agenda that he used. The copy you have got is of the master set. He did not use that.

Malcolm: If I could turn now to the investment statistics that were exhibited to your affidavit of 31st January 1990. I am slightly mystified by the relevance of these.

Lightman: Can I just ask - are you relying on them?

Malcolm: No, my Lord.

Lightman: Mr Warby, are you relying on these statistics?

Warby: My Lord, as far as there is any question as to whether Mr Malcolm's book was approved at that meeting - they go to that.

Lightman: But the statistics themselves cannot be of any relevance in this action, can they?

Warby: No. Simply the list of names of books.

Lightman: You have heard that there is no reliance; it is merely for the names of the books that appear. Do we have to go into the statistics? I cannot see that it has any...

Malcolm: Perhaps not, my Lord. No further questions.

Warby: My Lord, I have no re-examination.

Witness released

Discussion re. the evidence of MR IVON ASQUITH

Warby: My Lord, there is a question as to Mr Asquith. Your Lordship has seen the order which Master Barratt made as to the attendance of various witnesses. Mr Asquith is here. I have no evidence which I wish to elicit from him and indeed no statement has been served, but I understand that Mr Malcolm wishes to cross-examine him in relation to affidavits served. I am quite willing to call him for that purpose if Mr Malcolm still wishes to do so.

Lightman: Do you want to cross-examine Mr Asquith?

Malcolm: I think it might be helpful as to an explanation as to why the Defendants have been - as your Lordship has observed on many occasions - somewhat lax as to discovery of documents.

Lightman: I am really not able to go into areas of discovery at this stage. The question as to whether they were lax previously has been dealt with by earlier Masters and Judges on earlier occasions. Save insofar as it is essential in the interests of justice that particular documents that have yet to be produced are produced, I am not really concerned with discovery now. If that is the only matter you want to deal with with Mr asquith, I cannot see any useful purpose would be served by him going into the witness-box. If you wish to cross-examine him, I will not prevent you.

Malcolm: In that case, there is no need to question Mr Asquith.

Go to Malcolm's Statement of Claim, to the Case History, to the Affidavits: Ivon Asquith (1); Asquith (2); Henry Hardy; William Shaw (solicitor) (1); Sir Roger Elliott (1); Margaret Goodall; to the Witness Statements: Elliott; Hardy; Richard Charkin; Nicola Bion; Goodall, to the courtroom testimony of the Oxford Six, 14/3/1990: Elliott; Goodall; Bion; Asquith; Charkin; Hardy, to the testimony of Andrew Malcolm 13/3/1990, to the CHANCERY COURT JUDGMENT, to the Cambridge package and the Adrasteia package, to the publishing contract affidavits: Giles Gordon (1); Mark Le Fanu, to the APPEAL COURT JUDGMENT, to the damages affidavits: Alan Ryan; Asquith (3); Jeremy Mynott; Giles Gordon (2); Fred Nolan; Roy Edgley, to McGregor on Royalties (transcript), to the DAMAGES FINDINGS, and to the Settlement agreement.