I appeared for Dean Waters as trial advocate, in my first murder trial [at Newcastle Supreme Court] in 1997 before his Honour RS Hulme J (as he then was), when after a 9 day trial, the jury took about 30 minutes to find the accused not guilty of the murder of Allen Hall; notwithstanding the accused’s admission to firing the shotgun that killed the deceased. All the subjective background of the accused, including his very substantial abuse at the hands of his father, Cec Waters, was in evidence at the trial and was never disputed by the Crown.
