ACQUITTED of murder after a more than three-year legal battle, Benjamin Batterham appears set to be awarded costs of about $1 million after Supreme Court Justice Desmond Fagan criticised the prosecution's decision to press on with a trial in the face of overwhelming medical evidence.
After a two-week trial in Newcastle Supreme Court last month, a jury took a little over three hours to find Mr Batterham not guilty of murder and manslaughter over the death of Richard Slater, who broke into Mr Batterham's home at Hamilton in March, 2016.
Immediately after the acquittal, Mr Batterham's defence barrister, Winston Terracini, made an application for costs, telling Justice Fagan the defence had made a no bill application to the DPP in early July, making clear the evidence was not capable of establishing Mr Batterham's guilt.
The DPP replied on the final business day before the trial last month, denying the application.
"All of the strong points made in this trial would have been known to the appropriate assessor of the no bill application," Mr Terracini said.
During a costs hearing in Sydney Supreme Court on Friday, Justice Fagan said he could not understand why the prosecution pressed on with the trial after receiving a report from their own expert, conjunct associate professor Dr Michael Kennedy, a forensic toxicologist and pharmacologist, who opined that it was "highly unlikely" Mr Slater would have died had he not ingested methamphetamine.
Dr Kennedy went further than that during his evidence, telling the jury that methamphetamine alone, in fact, did cause Mr Slater's death.
Justice Fagan told the defence to draft a certificate for costs and adjourned the matter until Tuesday.
