The court is under pressure as it tries to catch up after the pandemic and cope with illness among staff and the judiciary, a judge says. Photo: RNZ / Rebekah Parsons-King
A judge in the Wellington District Court has today refused to hear arguments in a pre-trial hearing for a fraud case because he has not had time to read the file.
The accused, who is facing 30 fraud related charges totalling more than $100,000, has name suppression.
Judge Ian Mill told the court it was the second time this week he had been expected to hear a case without sufficient time to prepare.
As a result of that, he had not had any time to prepare for this case, which was much more complicated.
"This is no reflection on court staff, but this court is under so much pressure, first of all to deal with the backlog of work from the pandemic and also availability of staff and judiciary due to illness.
"And I am not prepared to paper over the cracks by embarking on a hearing with multiple applications involved and the time allocated is two hours."
Indicating the towering sheaf of papers before him, he said: "It would take that long to read the file and I haven't done so, I simply haven't had the time".
The pre-trial hearing has been deferred until next year.