THE CHAIRMAN: 'If you wish to have the legal argument
discussion in camera regarding the admissibility of this evidence, we are prepared to hear that in camera, but at the moment we are not prepared to hold the evidence or the opening in camera.'
MR. LAWRENCE: 'I am afraid that puts me a little at a loss.'
MR. STEVENSON: 'Does not that view have this consequence that you ought to hear the remainder of the opening in camera, because that opening will disclose the very evidence as to the admis- sibility of which Mr. Lawrence desired to argue?'
THE CHAIRMAN: 'We Will carry On in open court.' (Mr. Lawrence repeated his argument, and the Chairman repeated what he said before.) MR. LAWRENCE: 'Then that does mean what my learned friend interpreted it to mean : that you go into closed court, you hear what the evidence is, and then we argue.'
THE CLERK: 'That is what the magistrates have made up their minds to do.'
MR. STEVENSON: `I wonder if it will simplify matters if I remind you that I said, and said with- out qualification, that I was not prepared to oppose the defence request that the remainder of this opening should be in closed court. . . . I added I did not want to consent to it; the reasons for that are equally obvious, but as I am not pre- pared to oppose it, I should have thought, if I may respectfully say so, the practical course was for you to hear the remainder of the opening in closed court having regard to the view you have already expressed.'
Previous page
