Attend to case of earlier speaker (9)

I believe the answer is:

addresser

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'speaker' is the definition.
Both the definition and answer are singular nouns.
Maybe there's a link between them I don't understand?

'attend to case of earlier' is the wordplay.
'attend to' becomes 'address' (I've seen this before).
'case of' says to hollow out the word (remove centre letters) (outsides of).
'earlier' with its centre taken out is 'er'.
'address'+'er'='ADDRESSER'

Can you help me to learn more?

I've seen this clue in The Independent.

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