Groves trial stumbles again

Sunday 04 November 2018

A planned three day hearing in the trial surrounding Sarah Groves' death this week collapsed after just the first day.

But on the other hand, some key progress has been made in the trial as the decision has been taken to drop 10 of the remaining 13 witnesses who were still needing to give evidence.

An improvement over previous hearings - three witnesses and the accused, Richard de Wit, all turned up on Thursday, for the first of the three days scheduled for this week, but things quickly fell apart when the first witness took the stand.

The defence advocate was cross examining the witness, who was a Magistrate present for the autopsy, when the judge asked him to cease a particular line of questioning because it was "wasting court time".

A very heated exchange followed, which lasted for some time, and though the advocate did not agree, the judge stood his ground, so the advocate left the courtroom and did not return.  The judge decided that there was no merit in conducting any further cross-examination of this witness and he was allowed to stand down.

The two other witnesses then requested, via the Prosecutor, for the hearings scheduled for Friday and Saturday to be deferred.  The judge then re-scheduled the next hearing for Thursday 8 November 2018.

"Everyone recognises that the rate of progress in this trial is pitifully slow and the judge finally seems to be doing something about that.  However, this is only one aspect of the incompetence displayed by everyone involved at various stages along the way.  One that is of major concern is the poor quality and frequently irrelevant nature of the evidence being presented to court (as shown by the judge’s remarks and actions in court today)," Vic Groves, Sarah's father, said.

"It is difficult to recall any evidence presented to the court that has had any bearing on whether Richard de Wit is guilty or innocent.  This is entirely down to a series of totally inadequate and feeble Prosecutors (five to date) and a series of ill-informed and less than determined defence lawyers (again five to date)."

In a move to continually speed this trial up, 10 of the 13 remaining witnesses are set to be dropped and not called for evidence, with the three remaining "key witnesses" hoped to be heard as soon as possible.

In addition to that, the Judge asked the junior defence advocate to replace her senior - the one who stormed out of court - in all future hearings.

Mr Groves added: "Today’s fiasco could have serious knock-on consequences for Richard de Wit as he is left with very inexperienced legal representation. 

"Finally, by reducing the number of outstanding witnesses and by scheduling hearings on a more frequent basis than hitherto, the trial is at last moving towards its final stages."

Pictured: The accused, Richard de Wit, and Sarah Groves, who died in Kashmir in 2013.