In the last 13 working days, the panel has sat only on 5 interrupted days (Wednesday 23rd April, Tuesday 29th April, Wednesday 30th April, Tuesday May 6th , and Wednesday 7th ). This is hardly the agenda for a group that in the Health Minister's words, should consider the case of Dr Andrew Wakefield ‘as quickly as possible'. Still, never mind we know that the whole plan and objective of the GMC is to ensure that Dr Wakefield is ‘out of play' sitting in the sin-bin for as long as is possible, while the government and science lobby groups press their case for the safety of MMR and other combined vaccines, beyond the hearing.

Such extensive delays, however, make the reporting of the case difficult and I feel that I should remind you of the form which this hearing –   the hearing that the Chairman last week returned to calling an enquiry   - takes.

You will remember that last year after an interminable opening speech during which Miss Smith described in detail the prosecution case, she presented the prosecution witnesses. This process took from July until October, almost three months.

When we returned on March 27th 2008, Dr Wakefield began presenting his Evidence in Chief. This took the form of him being led through this evidence by Keiran Coonan. Coonan's approach to this was masterful, done with the ease of consummate summary. However, despite the logical and progressive narrative that Coonan and Wakefield provided, it was actually difficult to present a complete narrative until the prosecution had revealed all of their hand during the cross examination of the defendant. As I have said before, the GMC prosecution case is based fundamentally on Dear Brian's narrative and because this narrative is threadbare and lacking in proper proof, Miss Smith's prosecution is inevitably oddly anarchic, waving about like a wind-sock in a gale.

So it was the case that after the defence had been well and logically presented and it was Miss Smith's chance for cross-examination, she didn't so much as respond to the defence Evidence in Chief but embarked a second time upon the presentation of the prosecution. Dr Wakefield must have wondered why he had just given his evidence because Miss Smith seemed not to have heard - or at least believed   - any of it. Nor had she altered her case as a consequence of it. Instead of picking up on the vulnerable elements of Wakefield's Evidence in Chief, although these are hard to find, she began at the beginning, once again stating the prosecution case.

Miss Smith's cross-examination began on Friday April 11th and lasted until Tuesday April 29th, nine working days that must have seemed like nine years to Dr Wakefield. Inevitably it crossed my mind, as it would anyone's ,   that Miss Smith was a Time Lord and that the GMC had cleverly converted the room on the 3rd floor into a Tardis ; the nine days seemed to stretch interminably over eons. The cross-examination was made more mind-numbing because, inconsistent and inconsequential as it often was, Miss Smith never wavered from her original prosecution brief, so everyone listened to the same, by now, oft-repeated story.

The various mechanisms of the trial allow for the gradual unfolding of two stories. In theory, at least, a well conducted trial or a court case should be organic, in which matter should gradually adhere to one or more allegations creating a complete and believable picture. The jury that has listened attentively following the information as it comes in, considers at the end of the case which story or which aspects of the stories are most complete and believable.

In the case of Dr Wakefield's narrative, presented by the defence, Mr Coonan has moved expertly throughout the hearing to develop the story, so that by the end of the hearing it will be logical, continuous and simple. While the defence has moved like a sapling in the wind, Miss Smith herself and the prosecution narrative (which might more properly be called an un-narrative) has stayed ram-rod stiff,   like a tall concrete post in the path of a hurricane. The Prosecution took their story in all it's main features from Dear Brian and the GMC guided by an unfathomable desire to destroy Dr Wakefield,   appears to have made little attempt to properly investigate these claims. The prosecution entered the hearing with a half-baked story that was full of holes and written with venom. Of course they have only themselves to blame for the lack of proper narrative that they now find themselves clinging to, like a drowning sailor to a ship's wreckage.