The trial court had to recognise the duty of the prosecution to call its evidence before the close of the case. However, there was a general discretion to permit the calling of evidence at a later stage up until the time when the bench retired. Before exercising that discretion the bench had to consider the interests of justice overall and in particular the risk of any prejudice whatsoever to the defendant.

DC (Kennedy LJ, Butterfield J)

31/03/2000