Matthew GarrettIt's apparently not unusual for the deadline to be missed - writing a comprehensive witness statement that contains everything that's relevant to the case can be a bunch of work. What normally happens is that one side asks the other for an extension and they agree. If that doesn't happen, it's possible to ask the court to extend the deadline instead. If the court agrees, and if it appears that the refusal of the other side to agree was unreasonable, you can get costs for that application.
If you file a case and then serve no witness statements, you're not going to be able to provide any evidence to support your case and you're unlikely to get very far. Similarly, if a case is filed against you, and you fail to file a witness statement, you're not going to be able to provide any evidence supporting your defense at trial and that's largely considered a bad thing.
But fundamentally a witness statement is just a written description of the evidence in the case. If you want to be able to testify, you write down what you want to be able to say, sign it, send it to the other side at the appropriate time, and that's it. There's no cost associated other than time.
kidney@mjg59 The fact that you're telling us all this in great detail makes me assume that _someone_ did not do that correctly...
Oriel Jutty 