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The extraordinary delays which have beset the May case are turning it into one which makes the convoluted Jarndyce and Jarndyce legal epic in Charles Dickens's Bleak House seem like an example of summary justice.
At issue was a critical legal point as to whether dithering by the Revenue and Customs Prosecutions Office, or deliberate obstruction by May, is to blame for the eight-year lag between his conviction and the attempt by prosecutors to enforce the default jail term attached to his £3.26 million confiscation order.
The judge's verdict was expected yesterday but, almost preposterously, a decision by prosecutors to submit, only hours before the hearing, a new chronology of events on who was to blame for the earlier delays, means that a new hold-up - of at least six weeks - will now occur.
Just like the Jarndyce and Jarndyce case, it is hard to see when it will all end - and just like in Dickens's story it is hard to see how the interests of justice are being served.
