178th scheduled hearing...postponed

Tuesday 04 February 2020

Sarah Groves' family have suffered another "immensely frustrating" delay in the trial of the man accused of her murder.

In what's also been described as "adding un-necessary costs to an already expensive exercise", the latest hearing couldn't go ahead because the Judge was re-assigned to another case, but no one else was told of this in advance.

Saturday's scheduled hearing in the State of Jammu & Kashmir v Richard de Wit, who denies murder, was the 178th time his trial was due to resume, but as has happened on so many prior occasions, the hearing could not proceed.

Pictured: Richard de Wit denies murdering Sarah Groves in April 2013. 

Miss Groves' family were not overly surprised by this though, as it was only the second hearing scheduled for 2020, and they've previously found that Saturday hearings  "are rarely productive".

In a statement issued by her father, Vic Groves, her family said communications with Kashmir "are slightly easing with restoration of the internet but only at 2G levels," after months of difficulties following the loss of Kashmir's special status, but "this precludes applications such as WhatsApp and Facebook and SMS texting remains barred," restricting their contact with their legal representatives in the country.

Mr Groves said the information they have been able to receive was frustrating though.

"This hearing could not proceed for two reasons – the Judge was re-assigned to the High Court and could not preside over any of the cases listed for today and no witnesses were in attendance, reportedly due to heavy snowfall.

"This kind of delay is immensely frustrating because the Judge must have known about his re-assignment in advance. Not only was the accused, Richard de Wit, needlessly transported from the Central Jail but in addition our legal representative had returned from Delhi solely to attend the hearing, thereby adding un-necessary costs to an already expensive exercise."

Mr Groves said this latest delay is further proof of the lack of professionalism in the trial of the man accused of killing his daughter.

"The records show that no progress whatsoever has been made in this case since 23rd July 2019, a period of 194 days. One does not need to be a mathematician to work out that it will be a very long time indeed before any form of conclusion is reached – especially if we are successful if securing the recall of key witnesses who were woefully cross-examined first-time around and who, without exception, committed perjury.

"Clearly, such disrespect and lack of professionalism cannot continue. Surely, this case should be assigned to a higher court than the Second Additional Sessions Court where it is currently being heard."

The next scheduled hearing date is Saturday 15 February.

Pictured top: Sarah Groves.