The deceased appears to have maintained simultaneous domestic establish­ments with all three women and their respective children. In terms of division of his time he appears to have given preference to Margaret Green, but it seems that he spent two nights a week, regularly, with the respondent and, at least according to her evidence, gave what she regarded as a plausible explanation of his absences. Presumably, over a number of years, he managed to achieve the same result with the other women. This is consistent with his apparent success as a used car salesman.

Counsel for the States started with the proposition that disputes are either industrial or not industrial. That is logically incontestable; and, as was said by counsel in Repton v Hodgson in a sentence which Jordan CJ brought to light in an essay, ‘Like Sinclair’s well-known division of sleeping into two sorts, namely, sleeping with or sleeping without a nightcap, it would seem to exhaust the subject’. But the presence or absence of the quality ‘industrial’ in a dispute is not as indisputably apparent as the presence or absence of a nightcap on a sleeper.  Read more »

To read words into any statute is a strong thing and, in the absence of clear necessity, a wrong thing …

The D A was ready
His case was red-hot.
Defendant was present,
His witness was not.[fn1]

He prayed one day’s delay
From His honor the judge.
But his plea was not granted
The Court would not budge.[fn2]

So the jury was empanelled
All twelve good and true
But without his main witness
What could the twelve do?[fn3]

The jury went out
To consider his case
And then they returned
The defendant to face.

“What verdict, Mr Foreman?”
The learned judge inquired.
“Guilty, your honor.”
On Brown’s face — no smile.  Read more »

[62] This is an appeal from the Chief Justice, which was argued by this Court over nine days, with some occasional assistance from the learned and experienced counsel who appeared for the parties. The evidence was taken and the matter argued before the Chief Justice in two days. This case involves two questions, of no transcendent importance, which are capable of brief statement, and could have been exhaustively argued by the learned counsel in a few hours.

‘George, are you sure it’s worth your while to go home?’

‘This is an appeal concerning Polos, the mint with the hole in the middle. This is an appeal with a hole in the middle. It is dismissed.’

At 9.45 pm that night [the victim] received a phone call from a person who told her that the caller had read her letter [to a local newspaper] and that she should not have called the arsonist a coward; the caller did not like that; knew where she lived; had burnt the mosque and now her house was going to be burnt down. She thought the voice sounded like a 20 year old male ‘yobbo’ voice, ‘not very articulated, a breathy …  Read more »