The law should be slow to permit a permanent stay where the trial is said to be rendered unfair through the forensic decisions of the defence, such as choosing to pursue a collusion defence that introduces prejudicial material. The death of contextual evidence witnesses (as opposed to eyewitnesses or alibi witnesses) whose evidence can be partly read into the trial and is not uniquely within their knowledge does not necessarily render a trial unacceptably unfair. A complaint that amounts to a lost opportunity to question witnesses, where the possible answers are unknown, does not go beyond mere presumptive prejudice.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 16 later cases that cite this judgment.
4 of the 16 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.