Gordon Wood Court Case: Mark Tedeschi Defends Trial Decisions’

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Gordon Wood Court Case: Mark Tedeschi Defends Trial Decisions’

Networked Knowledge Media Reports Networked Knowledge Gordon Wood Homepage This page set up by Dr Robert N Moles On 15 March 2017 Sam Buckingham-Jones in The Australian reported ‘Gordon Wood court case: Mark Tedeschi defends trial decisions’. One of NSW’s most senior prosecutors has taken the stand in a packed Sydney courtroom to defend his decisions while seeking to convict Gordon Wood for the murder of his girlfriend, Caroline Byrne. Mark Tedeschi, a Queen’s Counsel who successfully put murderers Robert Xie, Amirah Droudis and Simon Gittany behind bars, has rejected allegations he acted with “malice” by prosecuting Mr Wood. In an unorthodox legal showdown observed by some well-known legal characters - including Gittany’s ex girlfriend Rachelle Louise and Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions Kara Shead SC - Mr Wood’s defence barrister Bruce McClintock SC is currently questioning Mr Tedeschi about many aspects of Mr Wood’s 2008 trial. The body of Byrne, a 24-year-old model, was found wedged head-first in rocks at the base of The Gap, a notorious suicide cliff in Sydney’s east, on June 8, 1995. Mr Wood, the former personal assistant to the late stockbroker Rene Rivkin, was convicted in 2008 of “spear throwing” Byrne off the cliff but was acquitted on appeal in 2012. He is suing the State of New South Wales in the Supreme Court for up to $20 million in damages for what he claims was a “malicious” prosecution. Decisions questioned This morning, Mr Tedeschi was questioned about his decision to engage University of Sydney physicist, associate professor Rodney Cross, to carry out tests to see how fast a strong man could throw a 60kg woman. Byrne’s body was found 11.8 metres from the base of the cliff - too far for her to have jumped - the trial heard. In particular, Mr McClintock asked why only one test was carried out with a “limp”-bodied woman. “I can’t specifically recall now what my thoughts were but I would have thought ... I don’t not need to prove whether she was conscious or unconscious, all I need to prove is that she landed in Hole A and could not have landed there by her own steam,” Mr Tedeschi said. “I can imagine if I was held up I would be frozen with fear and the slightest movement.” “You’d be screaming and fighting for your life,” Mr McClintock said. “I’d imagine you would be screaming, yes,” Mr Tedeschi replied. Mr Tedeschi rejected accusations Professor Cross was unqualified to serve as a witness, but conceded the professor did make “gratuitous” comments in his expert reports. “I often find expert reports contain gratuitous comments, Mr McClintock,” Mr Tedeschi said. “It caused me no more concern in this case than it does in others.” “It didn’t cause you to think the witness might be a little over-enthusiastic and it might impact the witness’s credibility?” Mr McClintock asked. “No it didn’t,” Mr Tedeschi replied. Mr Tedeschi said he was not aware an aerial photograph of The Gap used in the 2008 trial was taken in 2003, not 1996 as the jury had been told. The hearing, before Justice Elizabeth Fullerton, continues. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/gordon-wood-defamation-case-mark-tedeschi- defends-trial-decisions/news-story/bdc847725199d328509664f62e53714e .

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View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk brought to you by CORE provided by Sydney eScholarship Trials, Truth-Telling and the Performing Body. Kathryn Lee Leader A thesis submitted to the University of Sydney in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Performance Studies July 2008 Abstract In this thesis, I examine the role performance plays in the adversarial criminal jury trial. The initial motivation behind this inquiry was the pervasiveness of a metaphor: why is the courtroom so frequently compared to a theatre? Most writings on this topic see the courtroom as bearing what might be termed a cosmetic resemblance to a theatre, making comparisons, for instance, between elements of costume and staging. I pursue a different line of argument. I argue that performance is not simply an embellishment of the trial process but rather a constitutive feature of the criminal jury trial. It is by means of what I call the performance of tradition that the trial acquires its social significance as a (supposedly) timeless bulwark of authority and impartiality. In the first three chapters I show that popular usage of the term ‗theatrical‘ (whether it be to describe the practice of a flamboyant lawyer, or a misbehaving defendant) is frequently laden with pejorative connotations and invariably (though usually only implicitly) invokes comparison to a presupposed authentic or natural way of behaviour (‗not-performing‘). Drawing on the work of Michel Foucault and Pierre Bourdieu I argue that, whatever legal agents see as appropriate trial conduct (behaviour that is ‗not-performing‘), they are misrecognising the performative accomplishments and demands required of both legal agents and laypersons in the trial.
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