When jurors returned to court on Tuesday they were told that she had been given special permission to speak to her barrister in the middle of her evidence as she decided whether to continue, but it remained her “firm view” that she would not return to the witness box.
The Recorder of London, Mark Lucraft KC, told the jury: “I, in due course, will direct you about what consequence that has.
Jurors were told the mother, who is accused of gross negligence manslaughter of her newborn daughter, will not give any more evidence
www.independent.co.uk
Goodness knows what is going on here. The media are not reporting everything.
A witness may not simply refuse to answer questions, and a judge has the authority to order them to answer, to consider a refusal to be a contempt, and to have them locked up until they obey the order to answer.
On the other hand, there is a right not to answer certain types of question, including ones to which the answers would be self-incriminatory. And counsel does not have the right to ask whatever questions they want in cross-examination. There is scope for legal argument in both of these areas and for appeal.
This is being described in the media as a blanket refusal to answer questions, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's not accurate and there is an argument about certain questions that might be asked, perhaps because they might elicit certain answers, and CM has not accepted the judge's decision. (JMO). (Perhaps a specific question has been allowed to be asked, it has been asked, she has refused to answer, and what the question was hasn't been reported.) Whichever way we look at it, a case is supposed to be tried on the basis of evidence that comes through the witness box, so in that sense this is essentially about evidence (or the absence of it) rather than questions. My guess is that the CPS were caught on the back foot when MG represented himself to ask questions, but it could be that the CPS have been on the front foot today. Why? Because it is (JMO) beneficial for the crown if CM appears as a person who thinks not wanting to do something automatically means it's okay for her not to do it. On the other hand, being portrayed in that way in court reports in the media is not the same as appearing that way in court, so perhaps the CPS did not do well today. We can only guess... This seems like a very high-league conflict for sure.
"Special permission" is a very loaded term, and I note that the Independent does not attribute these exact words to the judge.
If I were writing this as a novel, I would have a dramatic handover of crown representation to another barrister...
