Senior Puisne Judge Marva McIntosh said yesterday that she was disturbed and upset that one of the four criminal courts at the Home Circuit Court will be closed this week.

Four murder cases which were set for trial were put off because of applications made by defence lawyers.

Senior Deputy Director of Public Prosecutions, Paula Llewellyn, said the Crown was ready to proceed in the four cases because the witnesses were present.

In one of the cases, attorney-at-law Ronald Koathes said his client had told him he did not understand the difference between "guilty or not guilty".

"It means did you do it or you did not do it," the judge said.

Mr. Koathes after speaking with the accused man who was in the dock, later told the court that the accused said he wanted to represent himself.

No manipulation

Mr. Koathes said he wanted to withdraw from the case, but the judge told him that he should stay with the accused and at least represent him as a friend of the court. The judge said she was not going to allow herself to be manipulated by the accused who was trying to have the case put off.

The case was adjourned to chambers and on resumption Mr. Koathes was granted permission to withdraw from the case.

The judge apologised to the jurors and explained to them that those were some of the reasons why there was a backlog of cases in the court, and the wrong people were being blamed for the backlog.

Medical appointment

The case of the three men charged with the murder of St. Mary businessman and Justice of the Peace, Winston Chin, and his wife Ilene, was put off yesterday because attorney-at-law Michael Lorne was off the island and attorney-at-law Lloyd McFarlane withdrew from the case. In another case, attorney-at-law Glen Cruick-shank was granted an adjournment because of a medical appointment.

The court was faced yesterday with the problem of insufficient jurors because only 39 jurors were in attendance.