The trial of a man accused of murdering 24-year-old Toyah Cordingley on a Far North Queensland beach has been delayed days before it was due to start.
Rajwinder Singh was due to face trial before Justice James Henry in the Cairns Supreme Court from Monday.
But proceedings were delayed until February during a pre-trial hearing today.
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It came after Singh’s legal team asked for the adjournment to assess evidence, some of which had not yet been disclosed, Justice Henry said in notes released to the media.
Cordingley was found by her father partially buried on Wangetti Beach near Cairns in October 2018, a day after she was reported missing.
The pharmacy worker and animal shelter volunteer had driven to the popular beach for a Sunday afternoon walk with her dog.
Singh, a nurse, was arrested in New Delhi four years later.
Police believed he flew to India soon after Cordingley’s body was found, leaving his wife and children behind at Innisfail near Cairns.
He was extradited to Australia and charged with murder in March 2023.
Justice Henry said the case was a circumstantial one, with no direct evidence Singh was the killer.
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“In a circumstantial case it is necessary not only that the evidence is sufficient to sustain the inference of guilt, it is also necessary that it is sufficient to exclude any reasonable hypothesis consistent with innocence,” Justice Henry said.
“In the present case the defence will be perfectly entitled to rely upon relevant evidence in attempted support of the hypothesis, consistent with Mr Singh’s innocence, that someone else was the killer.”
A different lawyer was acting for Singh during the committal process in the magistrates court when material should have been requested.
Justice Henry said to continue proceedings next week would be so manifestly unjust that in the event of a conviction it would be reversed on appeal and a retrial ordered.
“This decision may be seen as an upsetting development, but it pales by comparison to the injustice involved in pressing on with the trial listing when such a trial would not be fair because of the problems I have identified,” he said.
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