"intelligent and useful posts on many of the key legal issues"

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Wednesday 28 January 2015

Jesse Ryder trial

The remaining defendant in the trial arising out of the assault on Jesse Ryder, the New Zealand cricketer, has pleaded guilty.

I wrote about the assault in my book, Court and Bowled.  The other prosecution that has been brought regarding the incident concerns the uploading of a video on YouTube; that case is proceeding to trial.  It will have interesting wider implications, given the prevalence of smartphones nowadays.



Saturday 17 January 2015

Chris Cairns in court again


Chris Cairns has made another appearance in court.  It was only a routine case management hearing.  Cairns and his co-defendant, the barrister Andrew Fitch-Holland pleaded not guilty once again and it seems that the trial will proceed in October of this year.  

The case is reported on a number of websites including this Australian paper.  One mistake a lot of the media are making is to assume that Fitch-Holland was Cairns' barrister during the 2012 libel trial, on which the criminal case is based.  Fitch-Holland is a friend of Cairns, and gave him some assistance in the trial.  He did not, however, represent Cairns, in part because he is not a libel specialist.  He is a co-defendant because (as I understand it) it is alleged he improperly pressured a witness to sign a false statement for Cairns.  

It is important to reiterate that both defendants pleaded not guilty.  I shall keep an eye on the case as it progresses, and depending on other commitments, will attend as a journalist/observer in October when the trial takes place.