Day 292 - 01 Nov 96 - Page 05


     
     1        trial, and the significance of it, and we are very much
     2        doing it on our feet.  That means every night we panic
     3        about the next day, about what we are going to be able to
     4        revive, if you like, from the issue.
     5
     6        For example, packaging.  I am standing on my feet now about
     7        to do packaging.  In the last couple of days I have read
     8        all the Oakley transcripts and Caspar Von Erp.  I have not
     9        read the Kouchoukos and Langert transcripts.  I do not know
    10        why the Plaintiffs are laughing about that.
    11
    12        And the point is because we have had no back-up throughout
    13        this case, and I am not making a cheap point on that, the
    14        reality is we are refreshing our memory on what our case is
    15        and how much we have achieved.  We are absolutely staggered
    16        when we look back over the evidence just how much we have
    17        achieved and how important it is to interpret that to you
    18        in order to sum up our case.
    19
    20        And one of the reasons we feel - and this might be a cheap
    21        point - but one of the reasons we feel Mr. Rampton cannot
    22        deal with it in the way we are dealing with it is because
    23        the whole weight of the evidence is completely against the
    24        Plaintiffs, so they would have to do some moving of goal
    25        posts and legal fancy footwork, we believe, in order to try
    26        to reduce the significance of the detail that has come
    27        out.
    28
    29   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   You are saying ----
    30
    31   MR. MORRIS:   That might be a cheap point but...
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:   You are telling me now what you told me
    34        before, and I will think about it over the weekend, but, as
    35        I have said before, I think I should give my reasons fully
    36        if I decide there should be a timetable in the sense of so
    37        many days each.  I have expressed a view about the
    38        preparation time you were given.  I am not going to take up
    39        time doing that now.  If I think it is relevant to deciding
    40        a timetable, I will do it when I give my reasons on
    41        Monday.
    42
    43        I am not unsympathetic to the strains of a big case like
    44        this, but, as I have said before, I gave you what I thought
    45        was an ample opportunity to be prepared with all the weeks
    46        in the summer.  And, as I think I indicated before, and, if
    47        not, I will indicate it now so you can come back to me on
    48        it if you want, what I find difficult is this:  If you had
    49        got about three-quarters of the way through your joint
    50        submissions and you had said, 'We worked very hard through
    51        the summer but this is as far as our preparations got and
    52        we have now, over the last few days, been trying to write
    53        what we are saying now', then I might -- I stress might --
    54        have had some sympathy for you.
    55
    56        But when you stood up on 21st October to start the very
    57        first topic which you were going to speak of, and
    58        Ms. Steel, when she stood up a week later to start on the
    59        very first topic which she was going to deal with, you said
    60        you were not prepared even on those, I do have a difficulty

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