Day 186 - 10 Nov 95 - Page 59


     
     1        were asking to keep that week spare, I just remembered.  Is
     2        that a problem?
     3
     4   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  I do not know.  We will have to see.
     5
     6   MR. MORRIS:  Right.
     7
     8   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  How long is Mr. Brett likely to take?
     9
    10   MR. MORRIS:  The Plaintiffs have indicated they are going to be
    11        less than half a day.  So we will assume that he will be
    12        finished within a day.
    13
    14   MS. STEEL:  I was not going to raise this this afternoon because
    15        it relates to the end of term, but I was going to ask for
    16        the Christmas break to be extended.  I do not know whether
    17        you want me to give my reasons now, or whether you would
    18        rather deal with that some other time.
    19
    20   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Raise that some other time.
    21
    22   MS. STEEL:   OK.
    23
    24   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  You see, the reason why it is important to
    25        fill some of these gaps is that no matter how understanding
    26        I am about you needing preparation time, I mean, at the
    27        very least I console myself if there are gaps by thinking,
    28        well, it must be giving you a chance to do a bit of work
    29        which will save time on preparation of your final
    30        submissions.  Do you see what I mean?  Because if one is
    31        having time out of court for preparation which is more than
    32        one needs to prepare to call your witnesses who are coming,
    33        I console myself with thinking we are all able to do a bit
    34        of catching up work on what has already gone.
    35
    36   MR. MORRIS:  I would not assume that is the case with us because
    37         ------
    38
    39   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  But, I mean, the other point to make is that
    40        it is no more than what should be obvious, that if because
    41        you have difficulty getting your witnesses back to back or
    42        reasonably back to back these gaps open up, I become more
    43        and more inclined to say to Mr. Rampton:  "Well, you must
    44        call some of your people, whether they are left-overs or
    45        people who are put in ahead of the section they would
    46        normally be in, publication witnesses or anything like
    47        that, or whatever", but just someone.  Whereas we were
    48        contemplating the evidence finishing maybe the end of
    49        January or some time in February next year, that is clearly
    50        not going to be so now, but I do not want it to keep going 
    51        off all the time. 
    52 
    53   MR. MORRIS:  Yes.  The thing is we have not actually had any
    54        difficulty in scheduling our witnesses apart from the fact
    55        we keep having to put them back because the Plaintiffs have
    56        requested that we put them back, and so I -----
    57
    58   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Look, I do not ------
    59
    60   MR. MORRIS:  I am trying, for example ------

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