Toyah's Murder: The case against Rajwinder Singh

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Speaker 1 In the early hours of an October morning in 2018, the body of 24-year-old Toya Cordingly was discovered on a tropical Cairn beach.

Speaker 1 At the same time, the prosecution says the man accused of her murder was planning his trip out of the country.

Speaker 1 I'm Stephen Stockwell, and a content warning for this episode will be discussing violent acts and imagery. Maybe distressing to some people listening.

Speaker 1 We'll give a heads up in those sections in case you want to skip ahead. Welcome to the case of Toya's murder.
The body of Toya Cordingley was found at Wongeti Beach north of Cairns.

Speaker 1 Her face adorns billboards and stickers across the region.

Speaker 2 Searching for clues in the murder of the 24-year-old pharmacy worker alongside the idyllic and isolated beaches. This should not happen to a young woman out there walking her dog on a Sunday.

Speaker 1 There is a murder trial happening in the tropics at the moment.

Speaker 1 I arrived in Cairnster, flew up from Melbourne to Cairns to meet up with ABC reporter Chris Tester to cover the trial of Rajwinder Singh accused of murdering Toy accordingly in 2018.

Speaker 1 Chris, lovely to be here. Great to hang out in person.

Speaker 2 Great to have you in Cairns.

Speaker 1 It is my pleasure. Again, I would much prefer it was under different circumstances.

Speaker 1 And I noticed yesterday as I was coming into town, this like kind of whiplash of the tropical town or city that we're in, right?

Speaker 1 You know, as I was flying in, the plane turns and I realised that we were banking over the top of Wongeti Beach, this like incredibly picturesque, this classic white sand.

Speaker 1 I had this realization that, you know, that beach, Wongetty Beach, is the place where Toya Cordini's body was found in 2018, the reason that this trial is happening at the moment.

Speaker 1 Chris, we were straight into court yesterday once I arrived. Can you wrap up the day for me in 60 seconds or so?

Speaker 2 Yeah, it was a bit of a slow-paced start to the trial, as can happen, because a lot of the time yesterday was taken up by the impanelment of the jury.

Speaker 2 It was a large number of people, so we're actually watching this process unfold next door in the building at the police station, whereas we might normally be in court once we know the 15 people who will be sitting through the evidence over the next three or so weeks.

Speaker 2 Justice Lincoln Crowley explained a little bit about the case to the jurors, touched on a few key points that he thinks they need to be particularly mindful of.

Speaker 2 And then late in the afternoon, we got underway with, I guess, the meet Crown Prosecutor Nathan Crane beginning to outline how they say 41-year-old Rajwinder Singh murdered Toy accordingly accordingly and their allegations around how he evaded detection in the days that followed.

Speaker 2 That crown opening hasn't finished yet, so we'll be hearing a little bit more as this case kicks on today.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Chris. Yeah, great wrap-up of the day.
And I mean, yeah, there's a lot to unpack with all of that.

Speaker 1 I mean, you make it sound so simple and neatly packaged in the little wrap, but yeah, there's plenty to kind of dive into and explore as we get through this.

Speaker 1 and i really want to begin with the prosecution opening so nathan crane is the prosecution barrister who's going to be leading the prosecution case we yeah as you say he started his opening yesterday um and he immediately took us to wongetty beach this is the beach where toy cordini's body was found and and where the crown says she was murdered by rajwinder singh um what did he talk us through where did he how did he take us there Well, he really set the scene by, you know, many people in Cairns, and we don't know, people on the jury may be familiar with Wongetty Beach, but for those who aren't,

Speaker 2 it's both secluded and not secluded. He pointed out that this highway runs along the beach.
It's north of Cairns, a little way north of Cairns,

Speaker 2 but there's this dense scrub there. So things can transpire on that beach and people won't necessarily know.

Speaker 2 So we know now that the Crown says that there were no eyewitnesses to this alleged murder of Toy accordingly. No one saw what happened.

Speaker 2 He told us a little bit about Toya and what she was doing on that day. So she was 24.
He actually described her as young, blonde, and attractive and said she was doing what she did.

Speaker 2 She took her dog Indy for a walk on that day, October the 21st, 2018,

Speaker 2 and wasn't seen again the next morning. The prosecution says her father Troy accordingly was actually looking for Toya on the beach the next morning.

Speaker 2 And at one point he's noticed a mound of sand and has kind of gently brushed some of that sand away a couple of times.

Speaker 2 And then he spotted her foot coming through that sand.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he was walking along the beach, the prosecution said, and saw this mound and just kind of touched a portion of it. And the sand fell away, revealing Toya Cordenley's foot in that moment.

Speaker 1 And then he, the prosecution says, kind of, you know, went away, called police, got them involved. And I mean, the thing, Chris, that really surprised me, that I hadn't seen before,

Speaker 1 was that we got photos of this during the prosecution opening, not just photos of the gravesite with a little black bar over Toya's foot for the purposes of the opening,

Speaker 1 but also drone footage of one Giddy Beach, really getting a picture of that scene, taking us there. Yeah,

Speaker 2 it was visual. Everyone saw it.
The beach was really introduced as a key feature of this case.

Speaker 2 The jury given a bit of a preview of some of these exhibits that they'll see in evidence during the trial.

Speaker 2 Often, you know, you have to wait till that evidence is called and a witness is explaining what they're seeing.

Speaker 2 But they were shown

Speaker 2 these aerial images. The beach is actually four kilometres long, and Nathan Crane explained that where Toyot Cordingly's body was found was actually close to halfway in that four-kilometre stretch.

Speaker 2 So it's more than one kilometre from one car park at one end of the beach, and then more than two and a half kilometres from the other car park. So a really, a really isolated part of that beach.

Speaker 2 Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 And I mean, the thing that I also found, you know, kind of actually surprising in the openings was that not only was the jury shown the photos of it, they were told that they're going to go to Wonketty Beach.

Speaker 1 They're going to be taken on a field trip, effectively, to see this location.

Speaker 2 Yeah, the judge explained that. I guess, you know, you've empaneled the jury.
We're in for the long haul here. It's going to be a three-week trial.
The last thing we need is

Speaker 2 to have to start it all over again. There's a lot of things that the courts are

Speaker 2 cautious about when they're selecting juries.

Speaker 2 And the last thing we need is, yeah, this four-kilometre walk along what's probably going to be a hot sandy beach to find that there's one or more jurors who physically aren't up to it.

Speaker 2 So it was certainly something that Justice Lincoln Crowley made clear to them as they were sitting in and about to commit to being on this jury.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I mean, you know, we've been talking about where Toyota Cordingley's body was found on this beach.

Speaker 1 You know, we heard from Nathan Crane, the Crown Prosecutor, about, you know, what the prosecution is saying is really hard, like the hard visibility lines from various locations.

Speaker 1 So very hard from either beach, either car park, I should say, either end of Wong Guinea Beach to sort of actually look down that beach and see what's going on in those times.

Speaker 1 Yeah, talking about where the body was found. And we also got this kind of this warning from Nathan Crane about

Speaker 1 some of the content, some of the confronting imagery, some of the confronting details that were about to be discussed in the opening. And this is a warning for you as well.

Speaker 1 If you don't want to hear the details of Toy Corneny's injuries, maybe skip ahead a minute or so. But Chris, we did hear some of that detail as well.

Speaker 2 We did, and the jury was actually told by Nathan Crane that they need to brace themselves because they'll be shown images of some of this.

Speaker 2 And I guess he gave them that warning to reduce some of the shock element when it actually happens. But yeah, he was describing

Speaker 2 the injuries to her body, describing her left side as having been peppered with stab wounds.

Speaker 2 She sustained what he described as defensive injuries to her hands, as though you might be putting your hands up to protect yourself from a sharp object.

Speaker 2 But I guess the fatal blow was likely inflicted, the prosecution says, from this deep cut to her neck, which actually severed arteries and her windpipe. And they say that that is likely

Speaker 2 the fatal blow.

Speaker 1 And I noticed that Nathan Graham was quite vague about what was used

Speaker 1 in that attack, that inflicted these wounds on Toya.

Speaker 1 Why was that?

Speaker 2 Well, he said we don't really know. The prosecution alleges no weapon was ever found.

Speaker 2 They're saying that the jury will hear evidence that need not have necessarily been a large

Speaker 2 bladed weapon, for example, that could have caused these injuries, that there'll be witnesses who'll say that

Speaker 2 a smaller weapon could have done this damage. But look, it's not the only unknown in the case.
Nathan Crane was pointing at different things that we don't know.

Speaker 2 He's alleging, the Crown's alleging that there was a confrontation between Rajwinder Singh and Toy Accordingly on this beach.

Speaker 2 It's not said that they knew each other before, but what he did say is we just can't know what would have led to that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I mean you say that the

Speaker 1 murder weapon or the alleged murder weapon in in this situation was never found on the beach. I mean very little was found with Toy accordingly, it sounds like.

Speaker 2 Just a selfie stick.

Speaker 2 Whether she had clothes, bag, a phone, none of that was found. She was wearing a bikini which was actually cut through.

Speaker 2 Nathan Crane says that suggests perhaps that she was actually wearing the bikini that she was found in when this attack happened.

Speaker 2 But the phone, it sounds, is going to be very critical to the prosecution case.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I want to get into this because, I mean, we talked about, you know, what's happened to Toyo, the injuries that the prosecution says that she suffered before she died and all of that.

Speaker 1 I mean, how does, you know, the accused man, Raj Winder Singh, who's pleading not guilty in this trial, how does he fit in? How did he get tied up?

Speaker 2 Well, this is the thing. They've used different pieces of evidence to build the case against him.
And Nathan Crane said this is a circumstantial case. Classically so.

Speaker 2 So they don't have any eyewitnesses saying, I saw Rajwinder Singh there doing this.

Speaker 2 They have a combination of other evidence which justice lincoln crowley briefly touched on this in his address to the jury that to find him to find mr singh guilty they need to establish not only that this combination of facts um you know establishes that he was the killer but that it also precludes anyone else from having done so and the phone is a really critical part of this because the phone wasn't found at the beach

Speaker 2 but Nathan Crane is going to produce evidence at trial that he says that the phone actually left the beach.

Speaker 1 Right. And how do do they know that? How do they know that the phone was moving out? What are they saying they're relying on to show the phone's moving around?

Speaker 2 Well, he's saying he's going to produce evidence,

Speaker 2 essentially, phone tower data. And we saw some maps that were put up on the screen yesterday

Speaker 2 around different cell towers that a phone will ping from. And he's going to say that sort of, yeah, late afternoon,

Speaker 2 just before five o'clock, the phone toy accordingly handset actually started pinging away from Wongetty Beach, heading back in the direction of Cairns before abruptly going silent.

Speaker 1 Right. And I mean how do you get from that to Rajwinder Singh?

Speaker 2 Well the prosecution says that the police conducted an extensive investigation and they looked at the car movement, cars traveling in that area at the time.

Speaker 2 One car caught their attention among many and it was a blue Alpha Romeo and it was this Alpha Romeo that they say links Rajwinder Singh to that Wangeti Beach area.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right. And I mean, you know, we were talking about the photos and the video that we saw of the beach earlier.

Speaker 1 And Nathan Crane, as well as that, you know, when we were talking through this cell phone data and, you know, this car, he was putting up the maps of the towers on the screen for the jurors to look at, and then also CCTV of, you know, what looked like a blue Alfromeo driving past these different areas.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, really interesting to kind of see the kind of reliance on

Speaker 1 that.

Speaker 1 But, I mean, you know, we didn't hear anything about Rajwinder Singh Singh being arrested at the time.

Speaker 1 You know, basically it sounded like the story that the prosecution was kind of putting to the jury at that point was while Toya Kordini's body was being uncovered or being searched for,

Speaker 1 he was making other plans.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and this is going to be a really critical part of establishing whether this circumstantial case proves his guilt because Nathan Crane said that as Toya's body was being found on that Monday morning, the next day, Rajwinder Singh was booking a flight to India, which is where he was originally from.

Speaker 1 Right.

Speaker 1 And, I mean,

Speaker 1 just by himself? What's going on there?

Speaker 2 One-way ticket,

Speaker 2 had his wife, his parents, and his three young children at his home in Innisfail, which is actually south of Cairns.

Speaker 2 And the prosecution actually says that he didn't contact or try to contact or speak to any members of his family, and they weren't even able to find him over the next four years.

Speaker 1 It'll be really interesting to see how that unfolds. I mean, was there any.
Was this captured anyway? You know, say, look, this doesn't necessarily imply guilt?

Speaker 2 Well, the prosecution is alleging that it is part of the case that establishes his guilt.

Speaker 2 It's important to note, of course, the jury was given some instructions by Justice Lincoln Crowley before the opening, so at the very outset of the case, and he actually touched on this concept of flight, you know, and the Crown not only has to establish that flight took place and, you know, it can form part of the picture, but the jurors need to think very carefully, is there any other innocent explanation for why someone may leave the country?

Speaker 2 Interesting. That doesn't necessarily mean he did it and he was running away.
And we've heard that Rajwinder Singh is likely to be offering an explanation here, and there will be evidence about that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I mean, you know, we should clarify: we haven't had the defence opening yet, we haven't heard anything from the defense at this stage.

Speaker 1 We've just had, you know, the judges' kind of remarks to the jury, the jury selected, and then, you know, the first kind of probably half, two-thirds of the prosecution opening at this stage.

Speaker 1 So we're only really hearing and only able to talk about one side at this point. So yeah, you know, we'll be interested to hear kind of the other side of this as well.

Speaker 1 Chris, the prosecution did kind of point to,

Speaker 1 you know, a potential explanation that Rojwinder Singh had offered when he returned to Australia.

Speaker 2 Yeah, so the prosecution says he was extradited back to Australia four years later, was charged, and was then placed in a cell where he had a conversation with an undercover police officer, which was actually recorded.

Speaker 1 Right. And what did the prosecution say that he said in that conversation?

Speaker 2 The prosecution says in that conversation that he's described seeing these two masked men actually commit this murder and that that was the reason he ran away because he was afraid.

Speaker 1 Yeah, right. So the prosecution's alleging that he has told an undercover officer that he has seen these people murder Toy accordingly and he's basically afraid, which is why he's left.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 Although it's a claim that Nathan Crane has told the the jury is not true.

Speaker 1 Hmm.

Speaker 1 Interested in kind of getting a bit more detail on how that unfolded as well.

Speaker 1 I mean, you know, you'll notice as we're talking through this, there's a lot of the prosecution says at this point we haven't seen really any evidence presented by experts or witnesses at this point.

Speaker 1 There's been some videos and some photos shown on the screen, but Chris, we're just basically, this is the case being spelt out by the prosecution right now, isn't it?

Speaker 2 Yeah, and I guess the jury's given some directions about that at the trial, that things that either counsel says are actually not evidence.

Speaker 2 The evidence evidence is only what is tendered as an exhibit or a witness says when they're giving evidence at the box.

Speaker 1 So we're yet to hear the evidence.

Speaker 2 It's a bit of a preview into what the jury can expect to hear over the coming three weeks.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I mean, do you get a feeling or do you have an idea of kind of what evidence we're going to be hearing from the openings and what we've heard so far?

Speaker 2 Yeah, well, as we touched on, we're clearly going to get some data around phone towers and phone movements.

Speaker 2 There's obviously going to be a lot of CCTV about where Toy Accordingly was on that day, where Rajwinda Singh may have gone, and some other

Speaker 2 people connected to the case who we'll be hearing more from in the coming days about where they were and how their movements may fit into this picture.

Speaker 2 But there's also going to be DNA evidence because we heard that some forensic testing was actually done on samples found at the crime scene at Wongetty Beach.

Speaker 1 Right. I mean, what was the allegation, what was the prosecution saying about what was found or what was recovered from the beach?

Speaker 2 Well, the prosecution case is really centering primarily on two pieces of DNA evidence there.

Speaker 2 One was actually a stick found at the grave site, which Nathan Crane says a profile taken from that stick was actually 3.7 billion times more likely to have come from Rajwinder Singh than from another random member of the population.

Speaker 2 And then there were three logs placed at the base of that grave site where Toy accordingly was buried. And there was a partial profile there that

Speaker 2 the prosecution says was forensically examined and put that he was 2,500 times more likely than someone else to have been a contributor. And then there's going to be some other DNA evidence as well.

Speaker 1 Okay. Well, yeah, we'll bring all that to you as it unfolds and as we get more detail once it's basically presented to the jury.
Because again, it's just the prosecution kind of spelling out

Speaker 1 what they're going to be going to at various points. And I mean, Chris, we do have a jury making a call on this.

Speaker 1 When I arrived yesterday morning, jumped in a cab straight from the airport, straight into not actually court.

Speaker 1 We were next door in the police station watching the jury selection on a very actually a high-quality video link, I must say, from the courthouse. Is that normally how it's done here?

Speaker 2 No, a little bit unusual.

Speaker 2 Yeah, typically you can be in the courtroom while the jury is being impaneled.

Speaker 2 It could be a bit of a tight squeeze and sometimes you might be asked to step out as a member of the public or a member of the media just to make some space.

Speaker 2 But yeah, a lot of media here in Cairns for this case and I guess to keep things smooth and running, and there's some renovations at the Cairns courthouse as well, and of course, other trials going on.

Speaker 2 It's not the only court case in Cairns, so we were asked to set up at the Cairns police station next door to follow along. Of course, it is important that we can watch the impanelling because

Speaker 2 as the courts are very fond of saying, justice must not only be done, but be seen to be done. So we were able to watch that process unfold.

Speaker 1 It'd be great if you could tell Victorian courts that because we couldn't actually watch the impanel in the trial of Aaron Patterson, but yeah, grateful that we could watch it here.

Speaker 1 And yeah, look, a number of, I mean, a big pool of jurors basically as well for this because it is such a high-profile case. They're all kind of like, you know, in there, piling in the room.

Speaker 1 It was interesting, Chris, watching it on the link. You know, we didn't see much of who was going

Speaker 1 to the actual kind of like the jury box to be sworn in. And there's this like, this challenge process as they're going as well.
So there's a huge bunch of people. They're all kind of like walking up.

Speaker 1 And yeah, not all of them kind of making that cut in the end.

Speaker 2 Yeah, typically you will see both the prosecution saying stand by, which is a challenge, or the defence saying challenge. Those jurors then have to go back.

Speaker 2 You actually, in Queensland, each side typically gets the right of veto over eight jurors.

Speaker 2 In this case, there are actually three reserved jurors selected, so

Speaker 2 it's a... 15 jurors sitting through the case, three of whom will step away if they're all still there at the end of the trial.
That means that each side gets an extra two rights to challenge. So

Speaker 2 they each got

Speaker 2 maximum of 10 people that they could sort of stop and look at and say, no, thank you.

Speaker 1 And that was it. It's a look.
Like they're sitting there. These people are walking from either just outside the room or the public gallery up to the jury box.

Speaker 1 And there's either a challenge or a standby that kind of,

Speaker 1 to me, sounded like kind of came out of nowhere at one point. Hard to say if it was prosecution or defense in some moments.
And it's basically them being like, oh, don't I look at this person?

Speaker 2 Yeah, I guess you don't, unless you're in either legal camp, camp, you don't really know what the motivating factor is.

Speaker 2 But yeah, we end up with a jury of, well, in this case, 10 men and two women, and then the three reserved jurors, all women.

Speaker 1 Interesting, the gender split on that, really heavily leaning towards male jurors, 10 to 2.

Speaker 2 Again, it's really hard to say why, because, you know,

Speaker 2 these discussions, if it is at all relevant,

Speaker 2 are probably tightly kept within the

Speaker 2 legal camps.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah, yeah. Prosecution and the defence won't be, certainly won't be telling us the thinking and the reasoning behind that decision.

Speaker 1 But yeah, I mean, as best we can tell, there's no need for kind of like a gender quota or anything like that on a jury. So this is the way that it is.

Speaker 1 That whole process kind of took about 45 minutes, really, to nail down. And then we got into

Speaker 1 a really long list. Like basically, these jurors were sworn in at this point.
And then there were some checks, Chris, to make sure that they would be able to be a part of this trial.

Speaker 1 One of them, you've already mentioned this, like, you know, are you going to be able to walk for four four kilometers along Wongetty Beach when we do our field trip? The other one,

Speaker 1 a huge list of witnesses read out. I thought this was going to be a single page of like, you know, here's the kind of 30, 40 odd people you're going to hear from.

Speaker 1 And this document went for six or seven pages, 500 people or something on there.

Speaker 1 And there was this conversation that we had a number of times where Justice Crowley would say, this is going to be a three-week trial, sort of referring to that.

Speaker 1 I mean, Chris, there's no way we're getting through 500 people in three weeks.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I think if if you do the math, I think there was a little more than 470 on that list.

Speaker 2 That would put you at having to sort of get through 30 to 35 witnesses each day over the three weeks. Probably a bit unrealistic.
As in most trials, some witnesses will take longer than others.

Speaker 2 Some will be taking the box for minutes. Others will be there for the best part of a day or longer.

Speaker 2 It's really important that we don't get partway through a trial, in any trial, not specifically this one,

Speaker 2 and only to find that

Speaker 2 a juror knows someone peripherally connected to the case.

Speaker 2 So it's really important that jurors are given the names of everyone who may have made statements to police or potentially could be called in some way or another to give evidence just to ensure that things run smoothly.

Speaker 2 Courts have ways of ensuring that we don't have every trial running for about six months.

Speaker 2 And one thing that tends to happen is things that aren't controversial or not in dispute by either side can be put forward as admissions or agreed facts. The jury will be told this.

Speaker 2 There's no contention about it. That tends to, you know, save us from having to hear from 400, 500 witnesses every single time we have a trial.

Speaker 1 Yeah, as you were talking through that, I realized there's a key word in there that I maybe wasn't focusing on yesterday, which was potential witnesses.

Speaker 1 So, yeah, hopefully, we're spared from 500 and we're looking more around that. You know, 50 odd so that we'll hear through all of that.

Speaker 1 Justice Crowley,

Speaker 1 you know, real quiet talker, it must be said. You know, we're not sitting, I mean, the courtroom is actually quite big.
The physical space in it is quite big.

Speaker 1 You know, Justice Crowley is right at one end of it. And he would be, I would say, easily 10 meters from where we're sitting.

Speaker 1 But it was also kind of a struggle to hear him because he was talking quite quietly in that room at the time.

Speaker 1 But, you know, he was kind of briefing them on whether they knew anyone who would be on that list we were just talking about. And because this is, you know, Kansas is kind of a small city.

Speaker 1 So it's likely that people would know people as well.

Speaker 1 I mean, was there anything else in Justice Crowley's remarks that stood out to you, Chris?

Speaker 2 Well, I thought it was quite interesting that he acknowledged from the outset, perhaps an elephant in the room, that this is a high-profile case.

Speaker 2 He acknowledged that, you know, there has been media coverage about this over the years.

Speaker 2 And he essentially asked the jurors to really think about what they knew and whether they believed there would be any issues with their own impartiality.

Speaker 2 No one put up their hand to request being excused. But yeah, interesting.
A lot of what judges say in these trials at that point in time is pretty standard. They'll say it at every trial.

Speaker 2 And he did go through all that. Really important not to conduct your own research as a juror.
Really important to not look at any media coverage

Speaker 2 about the case, to only make your decision based on what you hear in the courtroom itself.

Speaker 2 But yeah, interesting that he acknowledged the high-profile nature of this case and really gave the jurors an opportunity to reflect on that themselves and think about what they knew and how they felt.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no, it was, again, it's really nice, kind of safe way to approach that as well, right? You know, really making sure people understand the weight of what they're doing as well.

Speaker 1 There There was also that, you know, talking about the kind of the generic parts of those remarks, you know, the classic, I'm the judge of the law as the judge, as Justice Crowley is, and then you're the judge of the facts, which I always appreciate.

Speaker 1 It's quite a nice way of distinguishing that. Also, the jury is getting called judges as well.
You know, you're the judge of the facts. It's very Dr.
Carl, you know, Dr. Dr.

Speaker 1 Chris, all that sort of thing. So very, very warm in those moments.

Speaker 1 And Chris, I mean, something else I noticed, a very different style to other trials that I have witnessed here in Cairns. I mean, and I say style in the literal satorial sense.

Speaker 1 Justice Crowley in these kind of, you know, quite striking, you know, red robes almost with a little white beard, big cuffs, and the wigs as well.

Speaker 1 Not just Justice Crowley, but the barristers in the wigs too.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a good thing that the courts are air-conditioned up here in the tropics. But yeah, that's actually the

Speaker 2 standard set for the Supreme Court in Queensland.

Speaker 2 There can be a little leeway on the wigs at times. If a judge himself is not wearing the wigs, then the council are excused from having to wear them.

Speaker 2 But yeah, wigs are part of the default court robing attire in Queensland. And yeah, we're in

Speaker 2 full wig and robe for this one here.

Speaker 1 It's a really interesting experience being here and seeing the differences and understanding all that and bringing it all to you as well through the case of.

Speaker 1 If you have any questions about any of this, please get in touch with the caseov at abc.net.au.

Speaker 1 We love hearing from you. And I've really appreciated all the emails actually that you've sent, you know, kind of thanking us for covering this case, looking at this as well.

Speaker 1 Our CANS listeners, I don't know if I'll have time to take up the various invitations for drinks that have been sent through, so please forgive me for that.

Speaker 1 But yeah, if you have any questions, please get in touch. The caseob at abc.net.au.
That is our email address. And yeah, Chris and I, very keen and happy to answer any questions that you've got.

Speaker 1 So please send them through.

Speaker 1 There are no bad questions. And yeah, anything we can do to help you kind of understand this process is what we're looking for and what we'd love to help you with.

Speaker 1 Chris, back in court today.

Speaker 1 Where are we going? What's happening now?

Speaker 2 Still got a little more of the prosecution opening to go. A bit more explanation from Nathan Crane about what the prosecutions have happened.

Speaker 2 And then we'll hear from the defence, Barrister Greg Maguire, a bit of an explanation about what the defence wants the jury to focus on and look at, given Raj Winter Singh has pleaded not guilty to this crime.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Chris. We'll be back in your feed on Thursday.

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Speaker 1 The case of Toye's Murder is produced by ABC Audio Studios and ABC News. It's reported by ABC reporter Chris Tester and presented by me, Stephen Stockwell.

Speaker 1 Our executive producer is Claire Rawlinson, and this episode was produced on the land of the Yemoi-Wallabara Yudinji people.