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| For obvious reasons, the following diary contains no names. It also contains no specific dates or places. |
The witness had prepared a projected income spreadsheet showing that the contract with ASC was expected to produce about $58,000 in income every week for Security Company, translating to $22,000 in profit after wages, equipment, and other expenses were deducted. The Crown had the witness calculate total sums for the expected income and profit over the term of the contract, which amounted to something like $1.8 million and $700,000 respectively.The witness believed that these projections were enough to arrange the required bank bond for the contract, but was frustrated by the reluctance of Accused A to supply further financial details which would allow the rough working spreadsheet to be converted to a solid business plan that would satisfy a bank sufficiently to put forward the bond money.
Accused A had also forwarded his personal income tax returns for two years to the witness. The witness stated that these listed Accused A's total income as around $5,000 and $4,000 for those years. The next year's return was missing, and although the witness requested it from Accused A, Accused A never supplied it.
Defence began cross-examination by producing the invoice balance sheet tendered as evidence through Witness 16, and comparing the actual weekly invoice amounts for the contract with the projected amounts calculated by this witness. Now we could see why those figures were placed on record when Defence had cross-examined Witness 16. The actual invoices were of the order of $5,000 per week - nowhere near the $58,000 calculated by this witness! The discrepancy was presumably caused by the inability of Security Company to supply enough guards to work for ASC under the terms of the contract. Defence was highlighting the poor profit performance of this contract, as compared to the projected profit.
In jury room discussion, we realised that the Crown was trying to establish a greed motive for Accused A to want to remove Deceased, in order to maintain his secrecy of the subcontract to ASC and keep all the profits to himself. Defence, on the other hand, was trying to show that any actual profits were marginal at best and therefore insufficient as a murder motive. The Crown has so far been successful in establishing that Accused A was hiding the contract from Deceased. We considered Defence's line of argument that Accused A knew the contract was not going to be very profitable to be weak, since Accused A could easily have believed the projected profits calculated by the witness, since all that it would require would be access to additional staff to satisfy the contract - and those staff could be available if only Accused A could access the database of job seekers in Deceased's computer. A lot of things clicked into place here, and we were buiding up a picture of the greed and ruthlessness of Accused A, but Juror A was very careful to point out, to the agreement of many of us - but not all - that this may not necessarily be a strong enough motive for murder.
The amounts on Accused A's tax returns indicated to some cynical members of the jury that Accused A was clearly engaging in tax evasion, probably by operating a business and using its profits to live on comfortably, without drawing a salary that could be taxed, and writing off his living expenses as business tax deductions. This merely confirmed our estimates that Accused A was a slimy customer - but slimy enough to commit murder?
Witness 19. Deceased's Solicitor. This witness described his involvement in arranging the legal affairs of Deceased for his involvement in the break-up of the company run by him and Former Business Partners, the setting up of Security Company with Accused A, and divorce proceedings from Deceased's estranged wife.
The witness described how Security Company was set up with Deceased having a 51% share holding and Accused A having a 49% share holding. This was so that Deceased could maintain a controlling interest in what he saw as material assets transferred from his previous business, an arrangement to which Accused A agreed.
With this witness we had the first email tendered as evidence so far - a message from Deceased to the witness asking for his share holding in Security Company to be transferred to the name of a friend of Deceased (Witness 21). Deceased was requesting this because of pending legal proceedings to recover debts owed in his name following the break up of his former business - so he wanted the asset of the new Security Compamy business out of his name.
The witness described how Deceased had owed him $9,000 in legal fees, but that Deceased was confident that he would be able to pay it soon, as he was expecting some $18,000 owed to him by Security Company to be paid soon. The witness said that Deceased appeared very embarrassed by his current parlous financial state and apologised profusely to him over having to defer payment of his fees. The witness and Deceased had had frank discussions over Deceased's finances, seriously considering the possibility of Deceased declaring bankruptcy, but Deceased had decided to work his way out of debt instead.
The witness said that Deceased's girlfriend was having a noticeable positive influence on his life. Deceased had given up smoking and drinking, and the witness was happy that Deceased had committed himself to working his way out of debt and satisfied that he would be paid the $9,000 he was owed soon.
During a recess we were given the transcript of evidence from Day 7 of the trial. The judge warned us that one question asked by Defence made no sense because the court stenographer had apparently misheard the question and recorded incorrect words, and that nobody had been able to work out or recall exactly what Defence had said. The section in question was marked "as transcribed". When we got the transcript, Juror A read out the passage to us, setting the context with some earlier questions leading up to the mistranscribed question. Then he read something along the lines of:
Defence: You have the document with contract that contains the document of value to show the contract for withheld to the document value. Do you understand that?We all cracked up laughing and went on for a good minute before we regained composure. It was good to have a laugh to relieve the otherwise serious nature of our contemplations throughout the day.Witness: Yes, I believe I do.
Witness 20. Deceased's estranged wife. In contrast to Deceased's girlfriend, this witness looked very nervous and sat stiffly throughout her evidence. She described the break up of her marriage to Deceased and how he had "stolen" money of hers by accessing it through her bank account via the Internet. She knew very little about Deceased's business dealings.
The witness said that Deceased had phoned her out of the blue a month or so before he disappeared, and wanted to open a dialogue on negotiating the divorce settlement. He had then called her again on the day he disappeared, to arrange a meeting over dinner the next evening to discuss their divorce. The next day she had received a phone message from a person she did not know, asking if she knew where Deceased was. She returned the call and discovered the caller was a friend of Deceased's girlfriend, concerned over the whereabouts of Deceased.
A few days later, the witness contacted Accused A and asked about the meeting they had on the night Deceased disappeared. Accused A had told her that he and Deceased had "had a fight, which was nothing unusual, but nothing serious," and he had walked Deceased to his car after leaving Restaurant.
Considering the potential importance of this witness, we were amazed that Defence didn't cross-examine her more thoroughly. We were waiting for Defence to accuse her of having Melbourne underworld connections, and of being an alcoholic, and of being after Deceased's money, and all sorts of other things, but Defence treated her very gently.
In the jury room, I pointed out that this account of what Accused A had said about his meeting with Deceased conflicted with every other account so far, in which Accused A has said that the meeting was "amicable".
Witness 21. Insurance broker who arranged business insurance for Security Company, and a personal friend of Deceased. The witness began by describing how he and Deceased had been friends at school, but had met again by chance a few years ago after having been out of touch for a long time. They renewed their friendship and remained in touch. Deceased had described his business affairs to the witness and introduced Accused A to the witness as his newest business partner.
The witness described having received documents from Accused A regarding financial arrangements for the subcontracting contract between Security Company and ASC. He had passed them on to Witness 18 to assess for the purposes of securing a bank bond for the contract, and encouraged Witness 18 and Accused A to deal directly thereafter. Crown asked if the witness had mentioned any of this to Deceased, and the witness said he hadn't.
The witness said that Deceased's girlfriend was having a noticeable positive influence on his life. Deceased had given up smoking and drinking, and was pulling hs life back together after some serious financial problems. Crown asked if Deceased had confided anything "of a romantic nature" to him. The witness said that Deceased had told him that he planned to ask his girlfriend to marry him. The witness had told Deceased, "You'd best deal with the current Mrs Deceased first." At this comment, several people in the court giggled, from members of the public gallery, to the Crown, Defence, the Accused, the judge, and some jury members. The witness continued, saying he thought this was a good idea, and that he approved of the idea.
The witness described having received a phone call from Deceased between 5 and 6pm on the day Deceased disappeared. Deceased had told the witness that he was meeting with Accused A that evening, and he would "call straight after the meeting" to tell him how it went. The witness never heard from Deceased again.
Crown asked the witness if his recollection of events surrounding the disappearance of Deceased was better back when it happened than now, and the witness agreed that this was the case.
During cross-examination, Defence jumped on the statement that Deceased had told the witness he would "call straight after the meeting". Defence produced a statement made by the witness to police shortly after Deceased had disappeared, in which there was no reference whatsoever to the Deceased telling the witness he would call him. Defence produced a second statement, made after Deceased's body was found, which contained the statement that Deceased had told the witness he would "call after the meeting". Defence reiterated the Crown's point that the witness remembered events better back when they had recently occurred than now, and demanded to know why the witness had said just now that Deceased had told him he would call "straight" after the meeting, whereas in two previous statements he had not used the word "straight", and in his first statement had not even mentioned that Deceased had said he would call at all. The witness was very cool and calm and simply agreed that he hadn't said it in his previous statements, but that now he was saying it as that was his recollection. Defence got angry and jumped around as he berated the witness over this point, but the witness remained very cool about it.
The judge called a short recess to allow us a break from the proceedings. Juror A commented that the Crown should use exactly the same argument used by Defence during cross-examination of Witness 15: That police statements are created by the police asking questions and recording the answers in a narrative form, rather than being typed directly by the witness. This would help explain why the witness' first statement had not included anything about Deceased promising to call the witness after the meeting, and the second one missing what has subsequently turned out to be a crucial word.
During re-examination, the Crown did exactly that. After the judge dismissed us for the day, I commented to Juror A that the Crown was on the ball.
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