Day 186 - 10 Nov 95 - Page 59
1 were asking to keep that week spare, I just remembered. Is
2 that a problem?
3
4 MR. JUSTICE BELL: I do not know. We will have to see.
5
6 MR. MORRIS: Right.
7
8 MR. JUSTICE BELL: How long is Mr. Brett likely to take?
9
10 MR. MORRIS: The Plaintiffs have indicated they are going to be
11 less than half a day. So we will assume that he will be
12 finished within a day.
13
14 MS. STEEL: I was not going to raise this this afternoon because
15 it relates to the end of term, but I was going to ask for
16 the Christmas break to be extended. I do not know whether
17 you want me to give my reasons now, or whether you would
18 rather deal with that some other time.
19
20 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Raise that some other time.
21
22 MS. STEEL: OK.
23
24 MR. JUSTICE BELL: You see, the reason why it is important to
25 fill some of these gaps is that no matter how understanding
26 I am about you needing preparation time, I mean, at the
27 very least I console myself if there are gaps by thinking,
28 well, it must be giving you a chance to do a bit of work
29 which will save time on preparation of your final
30 submissions. Do you see what I mean? Because if one is
31 having time out of court for preparation which is more than
32 one needs to prepare to call your witnesses who are coming,
33 I console myself with thinking we are all able to do a bit
34 of catching up work on what has already gone.
35
36 MR. MORRIS: I would not assume that is the case with us because
37 ------
38
39 MR. JUSTICE BELL: But, I mean, the other point to make is that
40 it is no more than what should be obvious, that if because
41 you have difficulty getting your witnesses back to back or
42 reasonably back to back these gaps open up, I become more
43 and more inclined to say to Mr. Rampton: "Well, you must
44 call some of your people, whether they are left-overs or
45 people who are put in ahead of the section they would
46 normally be in, publication witnesses or anything like
47 that, or whatever", but just someone. Whereas we were
48 contemplating the evidence finishing maybe the end of
49 January or some time in February next year, that is clearly
50 not going to be so now, but I do not want it to keep going
51 off all the time.
52
53 MR. MORRIS: Yes. The thing is we have not actually had any
54 difficulty in scheduling our witnesses apart from the fact
55 we keep having to put them back because the Plaintiffs have
56 requested that we put them back, and so I -----
57
58 MR. JUSTICE BELL: Look, I do not ------
59
60 MR. MORRIS: I am trying, for example ------
