Blog {Gustav Friis}

How can I describe it? Today we had our public inquiry at the University – the simulation exercise you might remember. I was okay prepared. I had to read up a little then Kevin Thurlow as my advocate would ask me some questions on which I was prepared. And after that Emmanuel Kiven and later on Scott Jackson as opponents would cross-examine me. Horrible stuff! The reading went well, and Kevin and I interacted pretty well in the prepared questions. After that I started to act more vaguely. The questions from Emmanuel were, I think, only peripheral to my subject, and when Scott examined me, I could have said anything. However I kept quite cool, not saying too much. Ken Burley (The whistleblower of Donnygate?) was the inspector of the inquiry and had a few questions for me at the end. I could not answer them at all. It is just a game I kept saying to myself. And that it was.

I represented the Land Holdings Ltd. The company which very unfairly had their proposal for a massive warehouse in the countryside south of here refused. We had all the good arguments however, and had the best advocate in Kevin Thurlow you could ever imagine. He really slaughtered the witnesses from the council, the community group and the other development company, which didn’t like us to run away with that nice piece of land. Having learned what seemed to be any fact of the case he asked the witnesses to prove their statements and asking them if they were aware of the proof of evidence we had submitted. Interrupting the witnesses at the right moments, and even showed what I would describe as a sarcastic attitude, to some of the answers. I wrote on a piece of paper: Brilliant. The most difficult of the witnesses to bend was the last witness, miss Hayley Chandler, who did a great job at the witness box, however not for a very long time – time was up.

And so it ended. We don’t know whether our company can build a warehouse at the site or not. I thought the inspector was to decide that, but he did not. It was a very giving experience to be part of the public inquiry, and people were really up to it. Relating to studying in Sheffield, I would say that this session was the best experience.