Day 165 - 27 Sep 95 - Page 34
1 My Lord, beyond that I obviously cannot go at the moment,
2 absent a schedule in order from the Defendants. I only
3 make this observation -- again it is intended to be
4 helpful. My Lord, Mr. Morris wrote us a letter on
5 7th September in which he helpfully set out his estimates
6 of the time -----
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, I read that.
9
10 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, my only observation about that is, when
11 your Lordship considers this question of scheduling, to my
12 mind, those estimates of examination-in-chief exceed what
13 I would call a realistic estimate by, I would say, roughly
14 seven to eight days in total.
15
16 To take an example, from the people from abroad -- it is
17 only one example -- I will take two; both from the
18 Antipodes, there is a Mr. Bowland from Australia and there
19 is Mr. Duncan from New Zealand. It did seem to me, on
20 reading their statements, that it is inconceivable on the
21 basis of what is written in those statements that they
22 could take more than an hour and a half in-chief, yet
23 Mr. Morris has them both down for one day.
24
25 The same goes also for Norwegian witness, Thomas Yensen,
26 who is down for one day. Again, looking at his statement,
27 I really find it impossible to understand how he could take
28 as long as that. The same does not apply with equal force
29 in the case of all English witnesses, but it certainly does
30 apply to some of them.
31
32 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, let me a do a bit on the schedule. Can
33 someone who has a diary tell me -- we have Monday,
34 23rd October written in, so the next Monday will be
35 30th October.
36
37 MR. RAMPTON: Yes.
38
39 MR. MORRIS: Sorry, I missed that last point?
40
41 MR. JUSTICE BELL: The next Monday which does not have a date
42 written in on the schedule will be 30th October, and there
43 are 31 days in October, are there not?
44
45 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, there are. Then there is Monday,
46 6th November.
47
48 MR. JUSTICE BELL: And the 13th.
49
50 MR. RAMPTON: My Lord, I am going to write in Lamti and "VG" for
51 the 13th, subject to any alteration which Mr. Morris may
52 say has now been made. I have pencilled in Mr. Mehigan for
53 the 16th and the Canadian witnesses for the 6th. What
54 I cannot do, of course, because I do not have the means of
55 doing it, is to fill in any of the intervening spaces.
56
57 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Mr. Mehigan, you said, was 16th October.
58
59 MR. RAMPTON: 16th October, my Lord. It would be wise, I think,
60 to put him in also at least for the 17th. All this means
