158. With one exception, none of the grounds raised before us relate in any way to the matters put before the court on the earlier occasion. The one exception relates to the fact that stories emanating from Julie Mugford had appeared in the press shortly after the trial. This was despite the fact that the prosecution had informed the defence, following discussion with the witness, that she had not sold her story to the press nor was it her intention so to do. One of the grounds relates to the same matter and we will deal with it further when we come to consider that ground. In every other respect, the application for leave to appeal has no relevance to the issues we have to determine.
FOLLOWED BY:
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.
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