Thanks Amee - appreciate your relaying tweets. IMO there is a possibility of GBC offering to accept manslaughter as a trade-off to reduce his sentence. Anyone else reading this between the lines?
I don't think Gerard is in a position to be offering anything except his close attemtion.. he has been tried for murder, found guilty by a jury, convicted and sentenced... this is his appeal, a process of the court procedure, which is mandatory for anyone convicted of murder, Gerard actually doesn't have a choice as to if he will appeal or not..it is part of the process... .....
He would have to be found not guilty of murder to be in anyway offering to cop a lesser charge ( with the consequent lesser sentence).... as far as I know, this appeal isn't set up to find an alternative charge... or an alternative conviction..
Back in the day, the DPP at no stage offered Gerard anything other than a trial by jury for murder.. if Gerards barristers asked for the change of accidental death to be considered, it wasn't made public.. .. seems to me the DPP of QLD scuppered that idea from the start.. to the Police it was always a murder ....
After the Prosecutors evidence was given, as usual, and quite lawfully so, the Defence asked for the trial to be dismissed on the basis of the evidence being flimsy, but the Judge ruled the evidence made a strong case for Gerard to answer to and for and the trial continued its progress until the final outcome.. if there was ever a time for an alternative charge it was then, after the Prosecution made it's case.