Day 187 - 13 Nov 95 - Page 46
1 Lordship has just said, and if Ms. Steel gets four days at
2 the end of this term when we do not sit, this imaginary or
3 hypothetical schedule is obviously realistic. Quite when
4 the missing days -- by that I mean the missing employment
5 witnesses -- will be heard I do not know.
6
7 Your Lordship will see that I have given Mr. Chester a
8 scheduling from the 19th February to the end of the month;
9 that is two weeks. I know that he can manage those dates.
10 I have called him provisionally. Certainly he could not,
11 on this basis, come any earlier than that. That was not
12 for his convenience, but that is because the employment
13 evidence will still be eking out its last breath, even into
14 the middle of February. I have allowed a week for
15 preparation for the rainforest issue, notwithstanding that
16 there are now going to be probably four weeks off at
17 Christmas and the week immediately preceding Mr. Chester.
18
19 I would like to have him there, if I possibly can, and
20 I will call my Costa Rican witnesses when he has finished.
21 Beyond that, I have done nothing more than to put in
22 outstanding people from different topics, including -- and
23 again this, I suppose, is provisional -- the girl, Vicky
24 Watkins, and the possibility of Dr. Mark Paterson in
25 response to her at the end of March; also Mr. North, who is
26 another provisional, I suppose. Then the 15th to 19th
27 April nutrition witnesses again, who (if any) will depend,
28 I suspect to some extent, on your Lordship's ruling on the
29 meaning in that area of the case.
30
31 I have allowed two weeks for our publication witnesses
32 because, I think, there are seven or eight of them, and a
33 week for the Defendants' publication witnesses and then it
34 ends up with the Defendants. I put a query after the 24th
35 May because they may not finish in two weeks.
36
37 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, thank you very much.
38
39 MR. RAMPTON: I have given your Lordship -----
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The benefit of it is it gives some realistic
42 estimate of when the evidence might end, whatever the
43 detail is along the route.
44
45 MR. RAMPTON: That is right. These actual day schedulings are
46 completely imaginary, apart from the ones I have underlined
47 and Mr. Chester.
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes.
50
51 MR. RAMPTON: A word about Miss ----
52
53 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Do you know what the terms are when the --
54 the summer is essentially one long 15 week term now plus
55 the week which is what we used to call the Whitsun week.
56 Do you know when that first half of seven weeks ends, when
57 that break is?
58
59 MR. RAMPTON: No, that I do not know. I know we start again, I
60 think, on the 15th April after Easter. What I do not know
