The Claremont serial killings trial has hit another speed bump, with the deferral of evidence by two police witnesses after objections from Bradley Robert Edwards' defence team.
Senior Sergeant George Paton, who was part of the Macro Taskforce investigating the 1996 and 1997 killings, was only briefly in the witness box on Thursday before lead defence lawyer Paul Yovich objected.
That was because Snr Sgt Paton would be giving evidence on both DNA evidence, which has been the focus of recent sittings, and yet-to-come fibre evidence.
Mr Yovich is not yet prepared to cross-examine Snr Sgt Paton and possibly Detective Sergeant Jim Stanbury, who was the former head of Macro, about fibre evidence, so foreshadowed deferring that until later in the trial.
But prosecutor Carmel Barbagallo said she would rather defer their evidence-in-chief than have their testimony broken up.
Justice Stephen Hall said he was content with that and wanted the trial to be fair.
The state is now scrambling to bring forward witnesses and may only read statements into evidence on Friday.
Earlier on Thursday, Mr Yovich questioned the relevance of Ms Barbagallo asking Carole Evans, a former reporting scientist at the now defunct UK laboratory Forensic Science Services, about further DNA evidence taken from Edwards' 1995 rape victim.
The 51-year-old former Telstra technician admitted in October - the month before his epic trial started - to abducting and raping the teenager in a cemetery, and prosecutors say DNA swabbed from her matches DNA found on the fingernails of the third murder victim Ciara Glennon.
Mr Barbagallo said the relevance was "to show consistency".
"All of the results that have been produced by any laboratory on these matters has consistently produced a result that is consistent with the profile of this accused," she said.
Justice Hall responded: "I"m not sure that's in dispute".
But he later added Edwards' guilty plea "doesn't necessarily entail an acceptance that all of the results of the DNA testing".
Ms Barbagallo said she didn't know what angle Mr Yovich - who has previously suggested contamination in the laboratory - was going to take.
"Quite frankly, it's a guessing game and I don't want to be in a position at the end of the prosecution case saying, 'I can now see the relevance of that'."
Australian Associated Press
