Groves trial prosecutor is the problem

Tuesday 26 February 2019

Sarah Groves family want the prosecutor in the trial of the man accused of her murder replaced, saying he is clearly the main cause of the constant delays they have faced over recent years.

Since Miss Groves died on a houseboat in Kashmir in 2013, there have been 149 scheduled court hearings - most of which have been cancelled, delayed or postponed for various reasons.

Despite the trial moving to a new court, under a new judge, with numerous lawyers defending the accused, Richard de Wit, the case has moved painfully slowly for the Groves family, who have yet to find out the truth about what happened to their daughter, or why.

Pictured: Richard de Wit at a previous court hearing. 

The latest hearing was due to take place on Saturday but Mr de Wit, who denies murder, couldn't be taken to court because of security fears. 

Since his previous hearing, on 7 February, the Groves family has been told that the security situation in Kashmir has "seriously deteriorated with India and Pakistan effectively on a war footing due to trouble in the Kashmir region." Over the weekend, 10,000 special forces were reportedly transferred to the region to try and bring order.

The Judge, Tahir Khurshid Raina, is back at work following a "long period of unexplained absence" and two witnesses were present in court on Saturday but this didn't mean any progress was made in the trial though. 

The prosecutor was there and the Judge gave him permission to examine one of the witnesses despite the accused not being there, however as no one was there from Mr de Wit's defence team, the case was deferred until the afternoon session. When the court room reopened after lunch, Advocate Mushtaq Ahmad Dar from the defence team was present.

When Advocate Dar had last been in the same courtroom as Judge Raina, the pair had an argument. On this occasion, the Judge refused to let Advocate Dar back into his court without an apology for his previous behaviour.  When he had apologised the Judge allowed the case to proceed, but by that point, the Prosecutor had left the court and was working on another case.

The Groves family said; "it is becoming abundantly clear that the Prosecutor is the main cause for delay in this trial. Attempts have been made to replace him but to date they have come to nothing. Renewed attempts will now be made to achieve this key objective."

They said that Saturday’s court proceedings "resembled a Whitehall farce.

"The building blocks were in place for the case to proceed and for a modicum of progress to be made but key players were not together in the same room at the same time." 

The Groves family said their legal representative asked for the next court dates to be set as soon as possible and they were initially given the 6 and 7 March, but "for reasons best known to himself, the Prosecutor refused to accept these dates and a single date of Monday 11 March has been set for the next hearing."

Miss Groves family say this means that there's been no progress in the trial of the man accused of her murder since 1 November, 2018.

"By the time of the next hearing that will represent a period of four and a half months.  The next hearing will also mark the 150^th occasion on which the court will have attempted to convene in order to hear the case - an unenviable milestone of which no-one associated with it can be proud."

Pictured top: Sarah Groves and Richard de Wit, who denies murdering her.