The Bentong Court Case...

"They say we learn more from losing than from winning..."

Any of you who have been to a court of law, be it high, middle or low – either as plaintiff or respondent, accused person, witness or defendant, learned lawyer or nosy observer – would not have failed to notice that the preliminaries are often long winded and not in any way related to the case.

And today I was subjected to these long winded preliminaries when I attended the court case in Bentong as an expert witness. After the oath or rather declaration to speak ‘the whole truth and nothing but the truth’, I gave my testimonials and was cross-examined by the Counsel. What irritated me most was when I have to repeat my statement every time before he could comprehend it completely. Even His Lordship took pity on me and a few times stopped the Counsel from asking the same questions over and over again. Either he’s hard of hearing or he was not paying attention. The statement which normally take an hour or two, lasted the whole morning and the court has to adjourn for lunch break.

I was lucky that I was seated in the witness box when I presented my analysis, whereas, the accused would be all the time standing in his ‘kandang’ and perspiring on his feet. Fancy the physical strain, especially on the calf muscles and the mental agony, particularly while at the tender mercies of the Counsel.

The drive back to KL was uninteresting and a few times I nearly dozed off at the steering wheel.