Her testimony is always going to be her word against his but I can't see how anyone can argue that her testimony isn't relevant because she had a deal with the NOTW lined up because it wasn't lined up when she came forward.
Even without NOTW, cheque fraud, OCP, cannabis dealing and claims of providing tablets for JB to drug his family I find her testimony irrelevant in forming my opinion. The reason I say this is that she didn't provide her testimony for over a month, although I don't buy the 'scorned woman' theory, but more importantly for me there's nothing of evidential value to it plus I have identified what I consider to be inconsistencies:
http://miscarriageofjustice.co/index.php?topic=7313.msg338510#msg338510I think NGB is saying it could provide an appeal point alongside other points but that it isn't enough in itself for a referral. I get what you're saying that she provided her testimony before NOTW featured. I guess there's some argument re the fact the trial judge warned jurors about cheque fraud and they were aware of OCP but not NOTW:
"It is the defendant's case, of course, that Julie Mugford's evidence in this case is fabricated, and that she is a brazen, blatant liar, so Mr Rivlin introduced the matter of her previous cheque offences in order to suggest to you then that it was shown that she has been dishonest in the past and so that you can bear in mind that part of her character when assessing whether to believe her not on the evidence she has given in this trial. That is the degree to which that evidence is relevant. Of course, the fact that a person has committed some offence, or has at some time lied in the past, in no way proves that they can never again tell the truth and you might think particularly so, on oath in a murder trial. It does not prove that at all. It is merely there for you to have in mind when you come to weigh up her evidence.
In considering whether her past dishonesty affects your assessment of her as a witness in this case, no doubt you will bear one or two things in mind, namely that she volunteered her past offences to the bank who had lost the money when she went to them about a month after she had made her statement to the police in this case, and volunteered to them that if they look back they would find frauds for which she was responsible. She told you that she went there voluntarily and re-paid the money that had obtained, and it seems, does it not, that without her voluntary revelation of her own part in those offences, she would never have been caught for them. They would have never come to light, and it was in those circumstances that she was not in fact prosecuted for them. She received a police caution." It seems at the previous 2 appeals NOTW was raised and dismissed as there was insufficient evidence to show the deal was in place at the time of the trial.
363. The final limb of ground 5 relates to the fact that Julie Mugford sold her story to the newspapers. As we made clear earlier in this judgment one ground of appeal raised before the court at the original appeal and rejected by the court as unarguable related to this same topic.
364. Mr Turner explained to the court that there was now evidence available to show that when Julie Mugford indicated through the prosecution that she had not sold her story to the press at the time of trial that this was simply untrue.
365. We can deal with this aspect of the case shortly because by the conclusion of the evidence, Mr Turner acknowledged that he was unable to establish on that this was so.
366. He, therefore, did not address us in his closing speech to argue that there was any significant difference between the ground that had earlier failed and the present ground and accordingly it must fail as it properly did before.I've always been puzzled about why recreational drugs were left out?