To say that some trials will be fair under this new regime or, alternatively, that trials will be somewhat fair is the same as to say they will be somewhat useless. You can no more have a somewhat fair trial than you can be somewhat pregnant. I cannot put it better than Marie Dyhrberg QC, president of the Auckland District Law Society, put it in her column on this subject recently: "It is vital that complainants feel free to step forward and have confidence in the legal system, but this cannot be secured by eroding the rights of the defendant, who has the right to be tried on all the relevant evidence." That is a theme to which I will return.