BUNGAY {he DEFENCE

Press, 22 November 1989, Page 21

BUNGAY {he DEFENCE

By

NEIL CLARKSON

Michael anthony Bungay, Q.C., wanders into Christchurch's majestic new High Court during morning adjournment and pronounces judgment.

v“lt’s certainly a better playground than we have,” he says. ' Bungay is referring to the somewhat less dignified surroundings of the adjoining court where he has been at work a day and,a half. The Wellington-based veteran of more than 160 murder trials is soon back in action. ; He slips again into his robe and restores his wig. The latest cigarette is extinguished as jurors file back into court to hear what Bungay has to say. ' He is on his feet 48 minutes for his final address, urging an acquittal. They are well-chosen Words, aggressively delivered. . There is some classic Bungay.

-.-•‘Here stands an innocent man,” he repeatedly reminds the jury in one of his early parries. He convincingly questions the Grown case.

” Bungay has himself sat in the public gallery of a courtroom and heard those well-chosen words echoed by other counsel. <”That has been used up and down the country now. But I’ll think of something pise,” he later reflects.

Michael Bungay is not averse

to disembowelling a few Crown witnesses during the cut and thrust of his final address. He, nevertheless ends on a disarming note: Jurors must live with, their decision. No doubts tomorrow, the day after, or in a year.

The jury acquits his client after deliberating 2>/ 2 hours. He has 15 minutes to get to the airport for his flight home. London-born Bungay has not had it easy in his climb through the legal ranks to become a top criminal lawyer with an enviable record.

At 55, he quips about someday sitting School Certificate. His early education was a victim of World War 11. He was ferried round 12 schools. London was not a safe place for children. “It was a very unstable upbringing because of the war. I was bombed out twice and was evacuated.”

At the age of 15 he joined the merchant navy, then the Royal Marines. When he was 22, he was demobbed and signed on with the New Zealand Army for five years. He studied part-time at Victoria University for his law degree and qualified two days before he was demobbed: “I

went from 25 pounds a week as a non-commissioned officer to 12 pounds a week as a qualified lawyer.” His university years were a challenge with his limited schooling. “To me it was tough. I had to work very hard because I did not have a basic education.”

Bungay believes his background has served him well. “As a trial lawyer, that background has been a tremendous advantage. I was brought up at street level. I am dealing with people at street level, including jurors. It is much easier for me to communicate than, say, if I had been to Christ’s College or Wanganui Collegiate. “The education system in New Zealand gave people like me a chance which I grabbed. Nowadays, I wouldn’t get near the place.” Bungay doubts he would have fitted into the legal mould in the United Kingdom. “They are more class conscious. That is one of the reasons I left. I wouldn’t have got the opportunity. The Bar in England is a bit like English cricket. They would sooner go out on a very fine stroke than get four on a miscue. That is why they always lose at cricket.”

He suspects his abrasive and at times brazen approach during his early years may have caused bother with the British legal authorities. Bungay is without doubt a colourful character. His way with words is refreshingly different, his sense of humour incisive.

The style is a result of 30 years of court work. Bungay acknowledges he watched and learned from the masters during his early years in the profession. But Bungay — as Bungay readily admits — is not an easy man to mould.

“In a way I was lucky. I never trained under an established lawyer. It allowed me to develop my own particular style. I wasn’t inhibited.”

His legal career started with a two-man conveyancing firm, with Bungay handling its load of generally minor court work. Two years later, he went to another firm and a year later, in 1964, went alone as a barrister and solicitor.

That year, he had his first murder trial, defending a man alleged to have beaten his wife and drowned her in a bath. The husband was acquitted or murder but found guilty of manslaughter.

In 1969 he was joined in partnership by lan Greig and in 1976 by Bruce Davidson. Bungay went out as a barrister in 1983 and was appointed Queen’s Counsel in 1986. His only employee is his wife, Ronda, and both work from home.

“More accurately, I’m her only employee. She gives me $lO a week to live on.” Ronda often travels with him during the 18 to 20 weeks a year he spends away from Wellington.

His workload is not what it used to be. He now does about 15 murder trials a year plus eight or so others involving serious crime. Typically, he has about a dozen murder trials in the pipeline. Bungay has never turned one down. None of his clients has ever pleaded guilty to murder, nor has he ever advised it. Such a workload was not the case in the 1970 s when Bungay regularly worked 12-hour days and spent much more time in court. “I kept a record over a period. I averaged 17 professional calls between 7 p.m. and 7 a.m.”

He ended the decade with a heart attack. He remains a heavy smoker, something which has not escaped his doctor. “He sort of mentioned it four

or five hundred times. I have managed 55 years as a result of smoking. I may as well carry on.”

He would have you believe his doctor bears the burden of worry over the heart attack. “I think he over-rates it a little bit. He seems a nice chap. He needs the work.”

Bungay has no qualms about his current workload and no thoughts of retirement, “some people can cope with the stress and crack up without it. It is something that is in your blood. You take people like Zsa Zsa Gabor. They don’t give up acting even when they’re 88.” He admits to being battlehardened, but the adrenalin still flows.

“It’s an adversary system. You have got to be competitive and have a killer instinct. You have got to have self-discipline. You try to see issues as a jury sees them. You don’t get emotionally involved. You eliminate identifying yourself with the client. You have to keep that objectivity. I minimise my involvement with an accused person. “You are very opportunist. If somebody drops the ball you pick it up and run with it.” Bungay keeps his cross-

examination short, his final addresses punchy and to the point. “To me, cross-examination is only aimed at what you want to say in your final address. That is your focus. That is where you are going to win or lose. You have got to remember that jurors have a limited concentration span. In the final analysis there are only four or five points you want to stress. “Law is largely the ability to communicate. I very rarely talk about the law in a final address. Nobody is going to believe me anyway. Sad to say, in most of these cases the law doesn’t exactly help me.” His high number of murders stems from results, not obsession. “I don’t have a fascination for murder, or for any other crime. Murder is the most serious; it’s first division stuff. To me there is nothing particularly difficult about murder trials. It is just that you are playing for high stakes.” Bungay admits his decision to embark on a law career stemmed largely from a desire to have a meal ticket in later life.

“There was no future with the Army. The Maori Wars hadn’t begun. I was just trying to get some sort of qualification for a

career.” He has few complaints about the jury system. “It is an imperfect system, but there is not a better option.” He agrees there is a case for taking complex fraud cases away from juries.

“I don’t agree it is necessary where cases involve human frailty, human conduct, human emotions.”

He says he gets on well with prosecutors in spite of his predilection for making their lives hell. “It’s a bit like a rugby game. It gets a bit rugged in the front row but you have a beer afterwards. They can’t help being prosecutors. Somebody has got to do the job." Michael Bungay says he does not always welcome the publicity, producing another sporting simile to sum up his view: “It is a bit like being in the All Blacks. It’s harder to get out than it is to get in.” New Zealand courts can expect to see more of him. “I am very content with what I do, and with my lifestyle. I have got a very good home life. I work in my own way. I don’t kill myself from work. I organise things to have the free time to do the things I want to do. Above all, I am not a slave to the system.”