However, you are entitled to come to conclusions based on all the evidence which you have heard, and that of course includes the evidence of the experts. Just a few more things to say about experts. A witness called as an expert is entitled to express opinions in respect of his or her findings on matters which are put to him or her by Counsel. You are entitled and would no doubt wish to have regard to the expert evidence and the opinions expressed when you come to your conclusions about the case. However, your hands are not tied by experts. This is a trial by you, trial by jury. It is not a trial by expert. You judge the expert evidence with due respect to the expertise, but it is for you to decide whose evidence and opinions you accept and it is for you to decide on the evidence you have heard. It is only part of the overall picture, and you consider the expert evidence along with all the rest with the same common sense judgment that you apply to all the witnesses.
Let me turn to a different subject, and that is the question of lies which it is alleged Mr. Park has told either to you or to the police. Mr. Park admitted that he told a lie to the Magistrates' Court in 1975. I am going to deal with that separately, because it is an entirely separate matter. However, the Crown allege that Mr. Park lied in other respects in either his dealings with you or with the police. They say that he lied when he said that Carol went to live at the guest house in September 1974 and he did not know where she was. They say that this was to try to persuade the police that she had disappeared without trace before the events of 1976. Mr. Park told you that he was confused at the time and he had been wrong. He agreed in the end that he had taken his wife to the guest house himself. The Crown say that Mr. Park lied to you about the date of the sale of his 505 dingy. He says that it was sold in June 1976 during his weekend sailing course in Windermere. He had in his own hand, however, entered the sail date in his sailing log as July 1976. Mr. Park says the entry is simply wrong. Again the prosecution put to Mr. Park he was lying when he said to the police in interview what he did about the course of events in 1975, the incident when Carol went berserk. He said in interview that at the time Mrs. Walmsley arrived, Carol had already lost it or was irrational or whatever. Mrs. Walmsley said that the hysteria only began when she absented herself for a few minutes to go to the lavatory. In his evidence, Mr. Park said that he could see the incident in his minds eye and it started as a quiet conversation between himself, Carol and Mrs. Walmsley, and at that stage he also said that it was when Mrs. Walmsley went to the bathroom that Carol flipped. Mr. Webster accused Mr. Park at that stage, you may remember, of boxing and coxing with the evidence.