The Summary for the Crown

Mr Stuart gave a very short address which chiefly concerned the Sierra and the lies Frank had told the police. He conceded that nobody sought to rely on the fibre evidence alone as proof of Frank's guilt. He said that the forensic links between the tools and gloves were not unique in the sense that fingerprints were. Rather, he asked the jury to consider the circumstances of the case as a whole.
He drew the jury's attention to the statements made by Wood and said that the jury must put them right out of their minds when considering the case against Frank. (This was the first time that this issue had been raised before the jury, a week after they had received copies of these statements.) No other mention was made of Wood. (The jury might well have wondered why Wood was not being mentioned and may have been forgiven for assuming that the case for the Crown no longer concerned Wood. Coupled with the withdrawal of both of Wood's defence teams, the jury must have been confused as to Wood's presence there.)
Mr Stuart then invited the jury to return a verdict of guilty against Frank. No mention was made of Wood in this regard.

The Summary for Frank

Mr Muller went through the evidence as it applied to Frank and was able to refute every part. He spent some time covering the secondary transfer evidence of Mr Spence. He then emphasised that Wood's statements could not be considered as evidence against Frank. It was pointed out that Frank had voluntarily entered the witness box to answer any questions put to him whereas Wood had not. Having appeared in the witness box, Frank's evidence had been undented by the Crown and unchallenged by Wood. Mr Muller then turned to Wood's statements, particularly that handed to Frank by Superintendent Hale. Mr Muller said that he too would have thrown this into the police cell toilet as this was the best place for it.
Mr Muller then invited the jury to acquit Wilkinson.

The Summary for Wood

 (Two defence teams having withdrawn from his case, Wood was conducting his own case by this stage.)
At the Judge's invitation, Wood stood up holding a sheet of paper. He was warned to confine his comments to the evidence as it had been given during the trial. If he attempted to give evidence from the dock or make a statement at that stage then the Judge would stop him. Wood stood for less than a minute and said, "The police are supposed to write down everything I say. I just do not know what has happened and I just want to say that, yes, I was with Mr Wilkinson all that night but I personally didn't do any murder." At this point he looked in Frank's direction, in an apparently clear indication to the jury that Frank had committed the murder. Wood then sat down. The Judge did not chastise Wood for giving evidence in such a way against his own warning. Nor was the jury told to disregard anything that Wood had said.

The summary by the Judge

 This summary was littered with errors, misdirections and two pieces of false information. Mr Stuart for the Crown twice was obliged to interrupt the Learned Judge and correct him.
Concerning Wood, the jury was informed that Wood's signed statements were evidence only against Wood. The jury was not reminded that they should take into account Wood's actions in taking the police to the forest near the scene of the murder, suggesting personal knowledge of the area. He did not instruct the jury to ignore Wood's final address from the dock which took the form of a statement of alleged fact despite having been expressly forbidden from doing so. The Judge did not explain how Wood was no longer being mentioned by the court because he was no longer being legally represented. (This may well have re-inforced the jury's impression that the case no longer concerned anyone but Frank - and given such an impression it was impossible for the jury not to take Wood's self-serving admissions as evidence against Frank. Where two men stand accused and one is seemingly discounted after having implicated the other, it would not be unreasonable for the jury to assume that guilt must lie with the other, despite evidence to the contrary.)
The fibre evidence was covered in such a way as to misdirect the jury. The jury was told that the green fibre on the sticking plaster proved physical contact. The Judge failed to remind the jury that this fibre had been found on the underside of the plaster along with many others which had not been examined or recorded - and that the sticking plaster and tape had been seen in place by Mr Ramsay at least two days before the murder. (The defence had been able to demonstrate that the fibre could easily have arrived there innocently when Frank had pulled Raffle from the Sierra seat earlier that evening. The Judge failed to draw the attention of the jury to the fact that this had been accepted by the Crown.)
The jury was told that they could take it that the hammer did belong to Frank when the evidence presented had been only that it could have done. Also it was not mentioned that whoever owned the hammer, it was in Wood's possession at the time Alan Raffle disappeared. Again, this was unchallenged evidence. The Judge said that fibres on the hammer proved contact and that if the theory of secondary transfer were accepted, one would expect to find fibres on the sack and tools as well and that no such fibres had been found. Mr Stuart for the Crown corrected the Judge, pointing out that fibres had indeed been found in this way. After this correction, no attempt was made by the Judge to redress any damage done - he said, "Well, you have heard what has been said" and moved on to another topic.
He mentioned the police surveillance, telling the jury that Frank had slowed as if to turn into Forest Drive and had speeded up again when the police caravan had been seen. No evidence had been presented to support this interpretation - the surveillance log suggests that Frank had slowed down after passing the caravan. (The jury was not reminded of the circumstances of the surveillance - that Frank's actions showed he was aware of being followed well before this point in the trip thus making a nonsense of any idea that he would then continue on a course to pick up a murder weapon.)
In mentioning the evidence of Kevin Lowson and the Sierra, the Judge misdirected the jury on a number of facts and then used these inaccuracies to invite the jury to conclude that Frank had lied on oath. On oath, on two occasions, Lowson had said he had seen the Sierra with a fitted radio and a 'B' registration plate on the afternoon of the Saturday. Yet it was established during the trial that the Sierra had never had a fitted radio and so either there were two Sierras or Lowson had lied on oath - not Frank. (Indeed, Lowson's statements show that he had originally told the police that the car had been a red Orion with a radio and that he had sat inside it. He changed his story later. These discrepancies were not pointed out.) The Judge went on to say that Frank must have lied on oath about the Sierra not bearing the 'B' plates until the Sunday and that the jury could draw conclusions from that lie when considering a guilty verdict. This seriously prejudiced the jury against Frank by obliging them to conclude that there were two instances in his testimony where he had lied.
The Judge raised the question of whether it would be likely that, other than the accused, two complete strangers just happened on the Sierra in its hiding place, took the car to Raffle's allotment, took Raffle away in the Sierra and killed him. There had been no such suggestion.
This summing-up appears to promote the case for the Crown at the expense of the case for Frank's defence, which was not brought back to the jury's mind. It seems to concentrate on those elements of the case which were consistent with a verdict of guilty.
Despite having failed to represent the defence case in any meaningful way, the Judge then sent the jury out to consider its verdict.