Day 165 - 27 Sep 95 - Page 44
1 be able to give evidence. That is all. What I would very
2 much appreciate from your Lordship is an indication when,
3 come hell or high water, he may be expected to be
4 accommodated in the court. Whether the Defendants have
5 finished their employment evidence or not, whether he comes
6 after or before the Defendants' rain forest witnesses
7 depending on how long they take with their employment
8 witnesses, my Lord, I do not really mind, but it is not
9 really fair to him, I know he is a McDonald's employee, but
10 it really is not fair to him not to try to fix him now
11 either for, as it now looks, the last week of November or
12 for one of the first two weeks of December. I do not how
13 much term is left actually after Friday 14th; there are in
14 fact three weeks of December left. So if I could have an
15 indication from your Lordship now that I am entitled to fix
16 him in stone for one of those four weeks, that is what
17 I will try to do. I am not encroaching by saying that on
18 your Lordship's generous estimate that the Defendants'
19 employment evidence will not finish before the end of the
20 week beginning 20th November.
21
22 MR. JUSTICE BELL: What I have in mind at the moment is either
23 Monday, 25th November or December -- is it 2nd December?
24
25 MR. RAMPTON: I think it is 27th November, my Lord, not 25th.
26
27 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is 27th.
28
29 MR. RAMPTON: Then the 3rd is the following Monday; the
30 following Monday is the 10th and the one after that is the
31 17th.
32
33 MR. JUSTICE BELL: It is Friday, 1st December, is it not?
34
35 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, it is, my Lord. There are only 30 days in
36 November.
37
38 MR. JUSTICE BELL: So it is December 4th.
39
40 MR. RAMPTON: Yes, I have gone wrong. Then there are four days
41 in the remaining week, the last week of term.
42
43 MR. MORRIS: We have something to say on that.
44
45 MR. JUSTICE BELL: When does term end, the 20th?
46
47 MR. RAMPTON: 21st, my Lord, that is a Thursday.
48
49 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Yes, what did you want to say about that?
50
51 MS. STEEL: Firstly, obviously we would apply for a week before
52 the rain forest issue starts because there is a lot of
53 paper work to get through. The other thing is that I added
54 up the times that we estimated for examination-in-chief
55 which are set out in Mr. Morris' letter of 7th September,
56 and there are two additional witnesses after that which
57 I think comes to two days. I make it, well, at least 22
58 days and that was just for examination-in-chief which would
59 actually take us, well, it would take us into the week of
60 27th November just for examination-in-chief alone.
