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| For obvious reasons, the following diary contains no names. It also contains no specific dates or places. |
Mother was clearly a bit distraught at having to talk about these events. Juror A (the foreman) pointed out to us in the jury room during a recess that he'd noticed that the Accused had averted their eyes from her during her testimony, not looking at her once. When we returned from the recess and she continued her testimony, however, I watched and noticed that now they did look at her occasionally.
Witness 5. Police officer who piloted the launch that retrieved Deceased's body from the water. Gave a long and boring description of the circumstances of the recovery of the body. During a recess, the jury discussed why we were being given so many seemingly superfluous details on the location of the body, over and over by multiple witnesses. This witness showed a series of 30 slides, being photos taken by him in the area the body was found. These were mostly of three boatramps in the area, one being a well-used ramp in a small town, the other two less-used ramps in bushland areas off the main road (which bypassed the town). Prosecution seemed to be leading to the conclusion that the body was taken by boat and dumped overboard, but never actually stated this. The witness' statement on the recovery of the body included a statement that the body was drifting downstream with the outgoing tide, though at a slower speed.
Cross-examination by the defence highlighted that this witness' estimate of the depth of water where the body was recovered was significantly different to the depth estimated by Witness 2 (a point the jury understood, but deemed to be largely irrelevant given the natural propensity for people's estimates to be inaccurate). Defence also laboured the point that the police launch was a catamaran, thus particularly stable, and that three police officers struggled to haul the body and chains aboard, at which point this witness helped and the four of them were able to haul the body in. The point being made seemed to be that the two Accused may have been insufficiently strong to move the body wrapped in chains, but which the jury discussed and again determined to be somewhat irrelevant, as the body may have been chained at the dumping site and simply rolled into the water, not to mention that the waterlogged body and plastic sheeting would be heavier than when it was dry.
Defence also questioned the witness on the three bridges in the area, upstream of where the body was found. The nearest was a railway bridge about a kilometre from the site, followed by two road bridges another two kilometres upstream. Witness described how the railway bridge was inaccessible due to access being fenced off by a 7-foot cyclone fence. Road Bridge 1 was an old bridge carrying the former main road across the river. The southern half of the bridge was lit, but the northern half was not. Road Bridge 2 was a new bridge carrying the new main road over the river, and was uniformly well lit. Defence suggested that maybe the body was dumped off Road Bridge 1, at which the witness squirmed visibly, seemingly uncomfortable with the defence barrister trying to suggest something incompatible with the police theory of the crime, and said that in his opinion he considered this very unlikely, as he would expect further tissue damage to the body resulting from the fall of 40 feet to the water while wrapped in heavy chain. Defence asked if the witness could be sure about that, and witness had to answer that no, he was not a forensic expert and was thus unqualified to make an authoritative statement on that issue.
Defence then questioned the statement that the body was drifting, and contrasted this to statements by Witness 2 and Witness 3 that the body had been stationary in the water. The defence again laboured this point, presumably in an effort to discredit this witness, but the jury in discussion decided this was another irrelevant tactic used by the defence, since the witnesses involved were in different situations and present at different times, so their observations and interpretations could easily differ.
Witness 6. Police detective who apparently led the investigation into the murder. This witness began by showing a tedious video taken from the police launch which recovered the body, beginning upstream of the road bridges and working slowly downstream to the site where the body was found. This was deathly boring and - the jury agreed in a later recess - almost completely irrelevant. Audio on the video consisted of another police officer occasionally calling depth soundings. Under cross-examination, Defence mentioned the sounding nearest to the site of the body as being 20 feet, a number incompatible with the depth estimates by both Witness 2 and Witness 5. Again jury discussion concluded this was a largely irrelevant distinction.
The witness described some of the police investigation, including a request for a warrant for a listening device to be placed at the Business Premises operated by Accused A, granting of the warrant, placing of the device, subsequent search warrant and police search of the premises, and subsequent arrest of Accused A and charging with murder of Deceased. We were shown documents seized at the Business Premises, including:
This witness had investigated the hardware supply store where Accused A had apparently bought the length of chain and five D-shackles. Another officer had taken a statement from an employee at the store, who recalled selling the chain and shackles. The statement, as recalled by the witness, indicated that the employee's usual method of measuring chain was to measure a one-metre length along his arm to the centre of his chest, then use that to measure out further metres of chain. When a metre length so measured was measured against a ruler, it was found to be approximately 1.1 metres long. The implication here was clearly that the 17.6 metres of chain found on Deceased's body had been measured inaccurately and could have been the same as the 15 metres ordered by Accused A, though the Crown never made this explicit.
Defence asked the witness, who was one of the other officers present on the police launch with Witness 5 when the body was recovered, if the body was moving through the water. The witness said no, he didn't think so, and Defence pointed out this was incompatible with with what Witness 5 had said about the body drifting. The witness said he was concentrating on the body and not really looking at his surroundings and Witness 5, being the boat pilot, was in a better position to judge, so he would take Witness 5's word for it, because he wasn't really sure.
Concerning the purchase of the chain, Defence showed the witness police running sheets - essentially raw and unedited transcripts used to record investigations prior to drawing up formal statements - of the interview with the hardware store employee. The running sheet, as confirmed by the witness, showed that the employee had recalled the transaction. He recalled he had measured out three metres of chain to use to measure out the total of 15 metres, when the purchaser had asked for the chain to be cut into three equal lengths. The jury found this to be highly significant, since if cut into three lengths, this could not be the same chain as found on the body unless two of the lengths had later been rewelded together. This point was, however, not made explicitly by Defence.
Witness 7. Police officer who performed some investigative work in the case. This officer investigated a lead in the case concerning the hiring of a small boat from a Boat Hire Business by Accused A. On questioning the Boat Hire owner (Witness 27), he did not recall anyone matching the description of Accused A. The Crown asked the witness to describe the accounting system used by Boat Hire, saying, "It was a shambles, was it not?" Witness agreed that Boat Hire's accounting system was "Very poor." The Crown raised the fact that several months later, Boat Hire owner contacted the police and submitted a hand-written note on the back of an advertising leaflet, which Boat Hire owner claimed to have found when cleaning out his car. The note contained the name of Accused A, his home address, a credit card number, a driver's licence number, the amount of $50, and words to the effect that the note referred to the hiring of a small boat.
The implication was that this note was taken to act as a security deposit, to be charged if the boat was not returned, presumably after being hired by Accused A. The shambolic accounting system was taken by the jury as being an attempt by Boat Hire owner to operate partly on a cash-only basis and thus avoid a portion of payable business taxes - thus the lack of more concrete accounting indicating Accused A had hired a boat.
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