Day 279 - 12 Jul 96 - Page 30
1 in your submissions. It would be no good one of you
2 saying, "Well look, as it happens I only seem to have been
3 on my feet for 10 days and my co-defendant has been on his
4 or her feet for 30", or I have got the figures rather
5 wrong. "I have only been on my feet for 10 days", that is
6 two court weeks, "my co-defendant has been on his or her
7 feet for 15", that is three court weeks, "and he or she
8 says they have got another five days to go. So we must
9 have another five days, that is an extra week on top of the
10 six." Because you will not get it. What it will mean is
11 that one of you has had less time than the other.
12
13 That is a possible disadvantage you have got to take
14 into account in deciding whether you want to address me
15 separately. In which case you go first, Miss Steel, and
16 Mr. Morris would go second. If you decide to do it that
17 way, I will give each of you a maximum of three weeks. I
18 mean, you may find that you want to divide topics up and
19 work together, but it is entirely a matter for you. The
20 normal procedure would be to hear one of you and then the
21 other. I am giving you the option of doing it together, so
22 one of you does nutrition and the other another of you does
23 employment, or you do bits of nutrition and bits of
24 employment each.
25
26 What you must try and avoid is repeating, one
27 repeating what the other has said. You need not say "I
28 adopt what the other defendant has said", because I will
29 assume you will, unless you specifically say, "I disagree
30 with Mr. Morris on this point, I would put it in a
31 different way."
32
33 MS. STEEL: Can I just make one inquiry? I want time to think
34 about this before asking anything else, I am actually, I
35 desperately feel like I need a break from the case and I
36 have actually arranged to go away for slightly over, well,
37 a couple of days over four weeks. As far as I am
38 concerned, I personally feel more comfortable expressing
39 myself in writing. Now, I don't know whether or not I can
40 do that entirely. But, if it was the case that I was going
41 to put most of what I had to say in writing, would it be
42 acceptable to come back, you know, a week or two later than
43 the suggested dates, if most of it was going to be in
44 writing?
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It might be, but what I am not prepared to do
47 is then add six weeks on to that.
48
49 MS. STEEL: You mean, six weeks starting two weeks later, or
50 something like that.
51
52 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
53
54 MS. STEEL: No, I understand that. Yes.
55
56 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Because what I think is just not acceptable
57 is finding we have got to the appropriate the end of the
58 autumn term and submissions have not been finished. So,
59 what you would have to come back with is a proposal that
60 you do not, you and Mr. Morris, do not actually start your
