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| For obvious reasons, the following diary contains no names. It also contains no specific dates or places. |
Crown also asked if Deceased habitually called this witness immediately after the interviews to tell him how they'd gone, and the witness said he would call some time later, not immediately afterwards.
Defence asked a question or two in cross-examination, but this was pretty boring stuff and I couldn't see the relevance of any of it until later in the jury room when Juror D pointed out that the witness' evidence meant Accused B had only limited opportunities to leave a fingerprint on a particular page in Deceased's street directory - and on a page corresponding to neither of the suburbs where this witness had sent them to interviews.
Following this witness, there was a long break while the court was set up with electronics for the next witness.
Admissions. When we returned to the court, the judge began by explaining that the Accused had made statements of admission of undisputed facts, under the advice of their legal counsel, which would now be read into the court record.
Accused A admitted that he had bought 15 metres of galvanised 3/8 inch chain and 5 D-shackles from Hardware Store a week before Deceased disappeared. Accused A admitted that he had bought 63 litres of petrol, 2 bottles of Lucozade and one of Coca Cola, 2 packets of mints, a 230 gram bag of Doritos, and 2 packets of cigarettes - one each of his brand and Accused B's brand, at 9:25pm on the night Deceased disappeared.
Accused B admitted that during the week Deceased disappeared, he had not worked the day of and the day after Deceased disappeared, and had worked some hours on only three other days that week. Accused B admitted that he was present at Business Premises on the day Deceased disappeared, for a scheduled company training exercise.
Accused A and B admitted that they had suspected their phones and Business Premises were being bugged as from a date which was a week before the recording played earlier in evidence was made - the recording of Accused A and his girlfriend (Witness 40) discussing the receipt for the chain and D-shackles.
The judge reminded us that these were admissions only of the specific facts in question, and not admissions of guilt in any way. In jury room discussion, we expressed the opinion that the "admission" of suspecting police bugging was simply an attempt by Accused A's counsel to have us believe that the recordings played to us were "acted" on the part of Accused A and Accused B, rather than being natural conversations.
Witness 61. Witness 10, police detective who obtained warrants and was involved with searches and listening devices, recalled. Firstly, Crown tendered a series of documents, being:
Crown asked the witness about the investigation by the Police Integrity Commission into Former Business Partner A (Witness 35). Another witness had said he recalled seeing Former Business Partner A on a TV story, recorded selling drugs. This witness stated that he had contacted the inspector in charge of the investigation and found that Former Business Partner A was never charged with any drug-related offence and never appeared in any drug-related surveillance video. Some video of Former Business Partner A was released to the media, but it showed him performing security guard duties.
Crown reminded the court of some earlier evidence regarding the address of registration of Accused A's Property Maintenance Company (PMC), which was listed in a tendered document as the rural address of Accused A's parents. Crown then tendered a letter written by Accused A to a bank, complaining about the bank sending correspondence to PMC at the rural address of his parents, stating that "PMC has never been registered as having that address".
Crown then tendered three recordings, two from legally placed taps on Accused A's mobile phone, and one from the legally placed listening device in Business Premises. These recordings were played to the court. They were all conversations between Accused A and Accused B, with Accused A's girlfriend (Witness 40) also briefly appearing in the Business Premises conversation. The first phone conversation and the Business Premises conversation contained references to Accused A's working hours and payment details, and various amounts of money owed by Accused B to Accused A. The second phone conversation was more about the police search of Business Premises and Accused A explaining what had happened and that the police seemed to be interested in Accused B also.
There was a brief cross-examination, in which Defence tendered some photos, confirmed by the witness as being more photos of the Business Premises.
The judge then asked Crown if he wished to re-examine the witness. Crown said, "Nothing arising. I close the Crown case."
The judge said that it was now the turn of the Defence to enter any evidence they wished. Defence for Accused A said that the defence for Accused A would be made up from the evidence already entered during the Crown case. Defence for Accused B said the defence for Accused B would also be made from the existing evidence, with the addition of a printed statement by a representative of British American Tobacco.
The judge read this statement, which was to the effect that 684,000 packets of the brand of cigarettes smoked by Accused B were sold in Sydney in the month Deceased disappeared. With that, the cases for the Defence were closed.
The judge said that now each party would make their final arguments before the jury would begin deliberation. He asked Crown how long he needed to prepare his argument, and Crown indicated 2pm the next day would be a suitable starting time. At this point, the judge referred to a message which had been passed to him by Juror C, indicating that Juror C might be attending a funeral two days hence. Crown said that if the court was not sitting on that day, he would prefer to begin his summing up on the next day after that, rather than begin and then have a full day's break in the middle of his argument. The judge had us leave the courtroom to see if Juror C could confirm whether or not he would be attending the funeral.
Juror C contacted his wife, and determined they would be attending the funeral, so we informed the court officer accordingly. We were summoned back into the court and the judge said that taking a two day break would be preferable to starting Crown's final argument tomorrow, so he would see us again in three day's time.
Evidence statistics. In the course of the evidence, we heard 61 witnesses. Crown entered 82 items as exhibits, while Defence entered 17 exhibits, for a total of 99.
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