According to Frank, Wood wrote a letter to his common law wife, Brenda McMillan, stating that he had been
threatened by Wilkinson not to give evidence from the witness box. This was a story to explain why Wood did
not want to appear since he knew that he would not be able to get away with lies under cross-examination.
Frank wanted Wood to appear and tell the truth about what he had done and to correct the falsehoods in his
statements to the police. McMillan gave the letter to Mr Steer, Q.C. for Wood, on the morning of Monday
January 26th. In his turn, Mr Steer demanded that Wood appear in the witness box. Wood refused and Mr Steer
said he would have to produce the letter to the court as was his duty. When Wood refused, his defence team
withdrew from the case.
This adjournment was very disruptive to the trial and Frank's evidence. Frank asked Wood what was going on
while they were in the cell holding area. Wood said he had sacked Mr Steer because he had wanted Wood to
confess to the murder. When Frank asked if he was going to give evidence and refute all that was in his
question and answer documents held by the jury, Wood assured Frank that he would and that Frank had no cause
to worry. Wood even said that he was ashamed that they had been read out in court. Wood told Frank that he
intended to instruct a new Q.C. to go for a defence of self-defence, that Raffle had attacked him. He was to
say that it was a fight that had gone wrong. When Frank pointed out that Wood had got this idea from Ord's
suggestion to Frank, Wood merely shrugged and said that it did not matter so long as he (Wood) got away with
everything. For his part, Frank said that he did not care what Wood said provided he did no more damage to
Frank. Again Wood assured Frank that he had no cause for concern. However, it transpired that Wood had not
finished attacking every aspect of Frank's case.