Day 136 - 16 Jun 95 - Page 26


     
     1        the court's time, but also the personal convenience of
     2        witnesses, but it is the way it is normally done.  I do not
     3        want great margins for error left so we are running out of
     4        witnesses each day with a considerable part of the court
     5        day left.
     6
     7   MR. RAMPTON:  My Lord, the only one other thing I would like to
     8        mention at the moment is this:  I am sure that one way or
     9        another we can fill up the rest of July, not, I fear, with
    10        employment witnesses for, as your Lordship has observed,
    11        many of them (and there are not that many anyway) are going
    12        to be pretty short.  The only ones that might take a bit of
    13        time are Mark Davies and Mr. Stanton.
    14
    15   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Yes.
    16
    17   MR. RAMPTON:  The reason for that is that they deal with
    18        Colchester where four out of the nine witnesses that the
    19        Defendants have indicated they will call come from
    20        Colchester in a particular period.  So, Mr. Davies and
    21        Mr. Stanton will have to deal with all of those, so they
    22        may take a bit of time.  The rest of them will be, I
    23        suspect, rather suspect.
    24
    25        My Lord, there are a number of remnants which again, it is
    26        entirely a matter for your Lordship, and have no submission
    27        to make, but people who are either half finished or not yet
    28        been called on other topics.  It might be convenient if
    29        there is time to fit them in before the end of July.  I do
    30        not know whether your Lordship will sit on 31st July which
    31        is a Monday?
    32
    33   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  What I would like to do is let us see how we
    34        are doing, as I have said, by Thursday afternoon.  If a
    35        more accurate estimate then can be given of how long
    36        Mr. Stein is going to last, we can start working from
    37        there.  What did you want to say?
    38
    39   MS. STEEL:   You were asking us about how long, you know, we
    40        thought the witnesses would take and things like that.  We
    41        did a get letter from the Plaintiffs a short while ago -- I
    42        cannot remember exactly when it was -- saying that they
    43        were intending to serve some supplementary statements, go
    44        through our witnesses' evidence and serve supplementary
    45        statements.  Obviously, it is going to be difficult for us
    46        to judge how long we think people might take if we do not
    47        know whether the Plaintiffs are still intending to serve
    48        more statements for particular witnesses.  So, I think it
    49        would be helpful, if they are still intending to do, if
    50        they could do that as soon as possible. 
    51 
    52   MR. JUSTICE BELL:  Fair enough, but if, for instance, a witness 
    53        at the moment it looked as if your cross-examination might
    54        last an hour, then even if there is a supplementary
    55        statement, that might only extend it to an hour an half; if
    56        you look at it now and you think it is going to be 20
    57        minutes, it might only extend it to three quarters of an
    58        hour.  We have to do our best to have a realistic idea of
    59        how long witnesses take.  We have to be prepared to have
    60        more witnesses at court on a particular day or particular

Prev Next Index