Day 187 - 13 Nov 95 - Page 49
1 case is run through the evidence, finish the evidence, then
2 you have speeches.
3
4 If it has been a complicated case, the practice has arisen
5 of the judge giving the parties a few days before they make
6 their speeches. In your case I appreciate you need more
7 than that, but the reason I raise it is this: Suppose
8 I fixed on a figure which is somewhere between four to six
9 weeks, or even half a term, to prepare speeches.
10
11 In this case where, even now, and certainly by next term,
12 you will have had all the evidence on certain topics bar
13 what you have got to say, yourself, on those topics, if,
14 for instance, we find that something like Heathrow takes
15 one and a half days rather than a week, then you have three
16 days in that week where you can turn your mind to some of
17 the work you have to do for speeches.
18
19 This is all a rather long-winded way of saying you can use
20 that time, as the case goes on, to think about what you
21 might say to me at the end, thereby abbreviating the period
22 of time which it is necessary to take between the formal
23 closing of all the parties' cases; that is the finishing of
24 the evidence and starting to make the submissions.
25
26 I am being, some people would think, very relaxed about
27 losing a day or two here and a day or two there, partly
28 because I do not want to run you into the ground, but also
29 because you can use that time, thereby saving some of the
30 time which you might well be allowed between the end of the
31 evidence and the beginning of your speeches.
32
33 MS. STEEL: I do not know -- I feel like I have to say really
34 that it is just not possible certainly for me to do that.
35 I have got a very small flat. I cannot have out more than
36 one set of documents at a time, and to get out one set and
37 look at them for a day and then I have to get out the other
38 set to look at them to prepare for the next witness, and
39 things like that, I would completely lose my train of
40 thought about, you know, preparing for the closing speech
41 and for the next witness to come, and it is -- on the days
42 that we have off I have other problems to sort out, like
43 housing benefit being cut off and things like that and --
44 I do not know.
45
46 MR. JUSTICE BELL: There are two things: First of all, I am
47 afraid I do not accept your first point because I have been
48 doing just the same thing, and all one needs to do is sit
49 down for ten minutes and make a list of which witness'
50 statements you need and the transcripts of their evidence,
51 if you want to look at the transcripts, and which
52 particular bundles and you can make notes as you go along
53 that you have got to look back at this document or that
54 document. If I can take home a briefcase enough to do that
55 sort of thing, or carry it myself out to my room, you can
56 do just the same.
57
58 I agree that if it is a question of having an hour and a
59 half, by the time you have opened everything up it is
60 almost time to close it again. But if you have a whole
