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| For obvious reasons, the following diary contains no names. It also contains no specific dates or places. |
Witness 26. Police detective who made the initial examination of Deceased's car after it was found. When the Crown called the name of this witness to summon her into the court, several jury members looked at each other, trying not to betray a smile of satisfaction that some of our most pressing questions were about to be addressed.
The witness said she had been called to examine the car in the street where it had been found. She took notes of its location, but the camera she brought to take photos with turned out to have no film in it. Therefore there were no photos of the car in situ. The witness said the car was parked with the rear wheel hard against the kerb and the front wheel about 30 centimetres away. She described various dents and damage to the exterior, and that the registration sticker had expired over two years earlier.
The witness said she took swabs for later DNA testing from the steering wheel, handbrake, gear lever, door handles, and seat adjustment levers. The car was towed to a nearby police station and inspected by Witness 13 two days later. The witness took photos of the car exterior and interior there, and these were tendered as evidence.
The witness later went back to the street where the car was found and took photos, which were tendered as evidence. She also went to the street where Restaurant was located and took photos of Restaurant and its surroundings, including the areas where Accused A said his and Deceased's cars were parked while they ate dinner at the Restaurant. These photos were also tendered as evidence.
Defence cross-examined the witness and asked if she had ever been sent to take photos of the petrol station where an employee had reported seeing someone resembling Deceased. She hadn't, and wasn't familiar with the petrol station in question. Defence showed her some photos of the petrol station, and she didn't recognise them.
In a recess, we examined the photos carefully, particularly of the car. We noted that the witness' testimony had not cleared up our concerns about what had actually happened to the car between it being seized and Witness 13 examining it for fingerprints. The photos, however, showed what was clearly a very dirty car. There were visible streaks of dirt on the side panels, around a close up of one of the door handles, and generally all over. There were bird droppings on the roof. There was caked mud on the wheels, mudflaps, and wheel housings. The car, in short, looked like it had been driven for some time on dirt roads, without being washed, and exposed to rain that streaked the dirt and the elements generally for some time.
We contrasted this to statements made by Witness 13, which we checked in the court transcript. Witness 13 had said that when he examined the car he had been taken by how "clean" it was. He said "It looked like it had been washed by the owner and stored under cover." This clearly contradicted the photos we had. Something fishy was going on here. The only reasonable conclusion we could come to was that someone had cleaned the car after it had been towed to the police station and photographed, but before the fingerprint expert had seen it. Extremely odd, to say the least. Even more odd to us was that Defence had made no attempt to point out this discrepancy to us, and the Crown had made no attempt to explain the apparent discrepancy. We desperately wanted to know what was going on with these particular pieces of evidence, as any sort of police conspiracy to cover up anything that might have been on the car would be of importance to reaching a verdict, since the prime alternative suspect was Former Business Partner A, a former police officer.
We discussed what we could do to have this clarified. We realised we were not investigators or barristers, but this particular point was very confusing, and we thought we needed to ask about it. We wondered if we were even allowed to ask about it. With the consensus of the rest of the jury, Juror A wrote a note to the judge, asking if we were allowed to ask questions about evidence which we found to be contradictory and confusing.
Witness 27. Owner of a Boat Hire Business. This witness was rather shaky and nervous, clearly intimidated by his surroundings and the events he'd found himself caught up in. We figured he had another reason to be nervous, as we'd discussed many times the piece of evidence found by this witness - the handwritten "receipt" for a boat hire which betrayed his less than accurate bookkeeping methods and probable tax evasion strategies. He gave his present occupation as machine operator - so apparently his Boat Hire had folded, possibly under investigation from the Tax Office?
The witness described his Boat Hire Business. Mostly he sold small boats - capable of being carried on a trailer - but he had one 12-foot aluminium runabout for hire, which was usually parked out the front of his business premises. The hire boat was emblazoned with gaudy advertising for the business and "Hire Me! From $35". The witness said he hired it out for from $50-$70 a day, depending on how well he knew the customer. The Crown showed the witness some photos of a boat, which the witness identified as his boat. Crown had the witness point out that the middle of the three seats in the boat could be removed.
The witness confirmed that on one occasion the police had questioned him about his accounts and asked if he had any records of Accused A hiring his boat. The witness admitted his bookkeeping system was "a bit haphazard", and that he couldn't find any such record. He then said that some 7 months later he was selling hs car to a friend and decided to clean it out first. It was very dirty, so he'd removed the seats to clean under them, and had found a piece of paper, folded up, with an ad for his Boat Hire Business on one side, his own handwriting on the other side. His writing said: "Tinie hire," Accused A's name, Accused A's address, Accused A's driver's licence number, Accused A's American Express number and expiry date, and the figure of $50. He had contacted the police and gave them the note.
The Crown asked the witness if he could remember Accused A coming to hire the boat. The witness said he had a bad memory and no, he couldn't. The Crown asked the witness if he recognised Accused A when he saw him at the court today. The witness said he thought he looked familiar. The Crown asked if the receipt meant that the boat had been hired to Accused A for $50 a day, and the witness said yes.
In cross-examination, Defence asked if $35 was the minimum fee for hiring the boat. The witness said yes, that would be for half a day. Defence asked how the witness distinguished between people to whom he would hire the boat for $50 as opposed to $70 a day. The witness said that if a hirer was interested in buying a boat and wanted to test out a similar model, he would offer the lower price. Defence then laboured over the point that maybe Accused A had been to Boat Hire several times and wanted to buy a boat, so that's why he got the $50 hiring rate. The Witness said he had no recollection of Accused A at all. Defence reiterated, and the witness said that maybe Accused A had come to hire the boat one afternoon after the witness had had "a bottle of red with lunch", and he wouldn't have remembered anything.
Defence then asked about what sort of deposit the witness took for boat hiring. The witness said he took a $200-$400 deposit when the boat was taken, but he also took $50 booking deposits to hold the boat for someone to come and hire it on a given day. Defence suggested that the $50 on the receipt represented such a booking deposit and not $50 a day for the actual hire. The witness disagreed. Defence reiterated the point that the witness couldn't remember anything at all about Accused A, so maybe the $50 could have been a booking deposit, not a daily rate. The witness reluctantly admitted that might be possible.
Defence referred to a statement taken by police at the time of their initial questioning of the witness. It said the witness had no recollection of anyone with Accused A's name. Defence then referred to court proceedings on this case last year, at which the witness was asked if he recognised Accused A; the transcript of those proceedings showed that the witness had replied then that he did not recognise him. Defence suggested that the witness only recognised Accused A now because he had seen him in court last year. The witness admitted this might be the case.
Defence asked when the witness had acquired the car he had cleaned and found the receipt in. He had bought it two months before Deceased disappeared. Defence suggested that the receipt could have found its way into his car at any time from then up until the date Deceased disappeared. The witness admitted that could be true.
In a recess, we noted how nervous this witness had appeared. His eyes had constantly shifted around the court, and he sat rigidly and wrung his hands as he gave evidence in a very soft, timid voice. Juror A said the Defence had really gone to task on him. One question raised was why would this man with the poor memory and extremely dodgy tax-evading accounting system, upon finding a receipt 7 months after the police had asked him for one concerning Accused A, remember the police were interested in Accused A, and choose to actively give this information to the police. The implication in the jury room was that maybe the police had set him up with some planted evidence. I found it plausible, however, that this man was so intimidated by the police that he would do anything he could to please them.
Witness 28. Director and lecturer at Security Training Company where Deceased lectured. This witness described his professional relationship with Deceased. They met at work frequently. The last time this witness had seen Deceased was the day before he disappeared, at a meeting they had together that night at Training Company.
In recess I pointed out that this meeting Deceased had at Training Company was at the same time as the meeting he had arranged with Witness 21, who had said that Deceased had missed a meeting with him on the same evening. At the time, that had been an indicator that Deceased was not always as punctual or reliable as his girlfriend had said, but this meeting at Training Company could have arisen suddenly and given Deceased a good reason for missing his other meeting that night.
Witness 29. Builder who worked for Accused A's Property Maintenance Company (PMC). This witness entered the court in jeans, sneakers, and a polo shirt, in stark contrast to all the other witnesses, who had worn business suits, very smart casual wear, or police uniforms. He described how he worked for Accused A in PMC, as the sole builder. He would receive jobs and go attend to them, working out of an office at the same Business Premises as Security Company.
The witness described how one day he saw a boat on a trailer at Business Premises. It had stayed there for a few days. The witness recalled that it had been roughly at a date which was in the week before Deceased disappeared. The witness said that one day he showed up at work and the boat was hitched to Accused A's car. The next day, the car and boat were gone, but Accused A returned with them around 5pm that day. The following day, the boat was gone. Crown showed the witness the same photos of a boat he'd shown Witness 27, and the witness confirmed that was the boat he'd seen.
The witness confirmed that PMC held accounts at three stores, to be used to buy necessary building supplies. One of the stores was Hardware Store. The witness said that he was the only one who usually bought supplies on these accounts; Accused A never bought anything on these accounts. Crown showed the witness the set of receipts from Hardware store, and the witness confirmed that three of them showed his name printed and were signed by him, showing orders of normal building supplies, and that one showed Accused A's name printed and was signed by Accused A - he recognised the signature - showing a purchase of 15 metres of 3/8 inch chain and 5 D-shackles. Crown asked if PMC ever used chain or D-shackles in its operations, and the witness said no.
Defence cross-examined and asked the witness if he could specify exactly the dates he had seen the boat at Business Premises. The witness said he couldn't but said it was within a specific two-week period - corresponding to the two weeks immediately prior to when Deceased disappeared. Defence asked if it might not have been up to, say, two months earlier? The witness said no, he was pretty sure.
Defence then referred to a statement made by the witness when interviewed earlier. The statement showed that the witness had said there were "thousands of boats like that" in the Sydney area. Defence asked the witness, if that were so, how could he be sure that the boat he saw at Business Premises was the same as the boat he had just been shown photographs of. The witness said he recognised it. Defence suggested that maybe he didn't really recognise it, he only thought he recognised it. The witness admitted that might be possible, but he was still pretty sure it was the same boat.
After this witness, the judge called an end to the day's proceedings. As we left the court, Juror A gave a court officer the note he had written concerning asking questions about evidence. We retired to the jury room, expecting to be let out a minute later after mobile phones were returned, as was usual. We waited about 5 minutes, and then the court officer reappeared and summoned us back into the court.
The judge thanked us for the note and said that he thought he should deal with it now before we left. He said that we had to be aware of the fact that the Crown and Defence know much more about the case than any of the jury, and even himself, and that we should trust to them to present all the evidence we need. Some evidence may not be admissable in court, which is why we might not hear certain things. But given that, if there was anything we wanted clarified or explained, all we had to do was ask by sending him a note, and he would discuss it with Crown and Defence and determine how to proceed. If necessary he could recall any witnesses and have them questioned further for our benefit. So if there was anything we wanted, by all means ask, but he could not guarantee that he could arrange what we wanted, since some things are not admissable in evidence. Having said that, he dismissed us for the day.
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