Hi all, many thanks for your good wishes earlier this morning. It was a very long wait and it really cheered me up to receive well wishes from total strangers as once my wife had to leave, you are so removed from your normal life - its almost like another world, most of you will know the feeling! I am now recovering from a successful surgery to repair facial fractures. Anyway, during the 7 hour wait for surgery I did manage to watch some live trial coverage as it was on Sky News. Expected to miss today so was very pleased to catch it! i couldn't hear everything but it seemed to me just how awkward and frustrating OP is at times. He has clearly been schooled in what to expect and is rightly very wary of Nel but I still find his attitude absolutely baffling, counter productive and potentially self-destructive.
For someone who is mainly relying on two things:
1) his honesty - the accuracy of his narrative and his memory
2) his character - his relevant background history, the relationship, his general demeanour
...I believe he has created further doubts purely based on the content and style of his responses and that these will surely have a very negative impact on his defence - perhaps fatally*
I guess it just shows that despite everything and everyone drumming into him what to say, how to say it, how to deal with things and also knowing that he has to try his very best to give himself any chance of a reduced sentence... That he just still, cannot help himself. They say leopards cannot change their spots or at least, not for very long. It's a real eye opener into the mind of a narcissist as he almost surely is. I would like to read more opinion about his true nature and mental health as there are definitely some serious issues there. Unsurprisingly.
I am too tired and groggy to go into all the inconsistencies of his testimony just yet (I am seriously doped up to the eyeballs on a variety of painkillers and so feel wonderfully numb but not the sharpest I've ever been!). I have to have regular obs through the night so instead of sleep, I look forward to spending the night reading through all your insightful comments and opinions on the state of play. Hopefully there will be some long juicy posts to get my teeth into. KT, Lisa, Trooper, Viper - please get typing!
To wrap up.... I am very concerned that OP has set a pattern now, one too easily accepted and is avoiding 95% of responsibility and is being allowed to be awkward/obstinate/downright nonsensical and quite frankly his attitude defies belief at times. Truly remarkable actually. I will elaborate further when I'm back at home recovering.
I also fear that Nel is not as organised and focused as I would like to see. His style can lack some drama and sharp timing and the ability to really strike a telling blow into the court record. I have seen him waste quite a few opportunities and really hope he starts to make more things stick as to me, there are a growing number of gaping holes in OP's flimsy narrative that are not being highlighted anywhere clearly enough.
It is all so blatantantly implausible to me that it is cringeworthy and I want it to be thoroughly and systematically dismembered and discredited as there needs to be justice and absolutely no doubts.
There is still too much grey area despite so many inconsistencies and improbabilities and it needs some order and clarity of presentation, <before> more DT witnesses and closing arguments.
Time for evening meds!
Thanks again.
TD
