Counsel’s silence halts trial

Press, 10 November 1983, Page 10

Counsel’s silence halts trial

PA Auckland “We have a problem,” an Auckland District Court Judge told the jury as he adjourned a trial yesterday, because senior counsel for rthe Crown had lost his voice.

Judge J. R. Callander made the announcement beforei court began.

Counsel, Mr A. Lawson was to have resumed his cross-examination of one of the accused in the trial of two people facing fraud charges involving $500,000, which has been continuing for five weeks. But Mr Lawson could barely speak when he arrived yesterday morning and the jury was told he

had laryngitis.

“You will recollect that when the jury was being empanelled we had a problem with a Samoan panelist who could not speak English. Now we have senior counsel for the Crown in the same position for another reason,” the Judge told the jury. The Judge adjourned the

trial until today. Facing trial are a chartered accountant, Kenneth Douglas Mexted, aged 39, and his secretary, Lorraine Ivy Heskett, aged 38, both of Remuera, who have denied a number of charges of fraud offences against people in Auckland, Waikato and Bay of Plenty between 1978 and 1981.