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
