Judge in rugby brain injury lawsuit tells legal teams to hurry up as cases drag on

• Five years on and little progress made, says judge

• Litigants have until October to choose 28 lead claimants

The judge overseeing the pretrial phase of the two landmark litigation cases about brain injuries in rugby has issued another rebuke to the legal teams on both sides over their lack of progress.

Senior Master Jeremy Cook started the latest round of case management hearings by reminding both the defendants and the claimants that “it won’t have escaped anybody’s notice that some of these claims are now over five years old, and we haven’t made much progress”.