Walter White witness statement

This is from a big money divorce case before Mostyn J

Quan v Bray and Others 2018

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Fam/2018/3558.html

35. The husband’s contemptuous and arrogant attitude is further illuminated by the following passages in his principal witness statement dated 21 September 2018. At paragraph 13, when speaking of his earning capacity, he stated:
36. 1. “I might be able to earn some money as a drug dealer. Before I changed my major to mathematics in my final year of college, I was a chemistry major. My senior organic chemistry project was the synthesis of cocaine, a synthesis that was, at that time, on the frontiers of organic chemistry due to problems related to controlling the chirality of the cocaine molecule. As I recall, only 1 of the 16 possible stereoisomers is psychoactive. The cocaine plant naturally produces only this stereoisomer but in the lab this is quite difficult. This is why cocaine is extracted from the plant for commercial use rather than synthesised as methamphetamine is. (Walter White’s particular expertise in Breaking Bad was controlling which enantiomer he produced but he only had to worry about 2 possibilities and both left and right-handed meth are psychoactive – dextromethamphetamine being the stronger drug.)”

A witness statement is made primarily for the court and to write this is not only childish and facetious but is directly and grossly disrespectful to the authority of the court.

36. But it did not stop there. In the next paragraph he wrote:
37. 1. “A further possibility is that I might be able to pursue a career as a legal executive at Vardags [the wife’s solicitors]. I gather from Stephen Levitt’s economic research on crime, that I might well earn more extorting money for Vardags then I would earn in drug dealing (apparently, most drug dealers live with their mother because they cannot afford a place of their own). Despite the financial disadvantage, I think I would prefer drug dealing because it is considerably more ethical.”

This goes beyond childishness and facetiousness. It is grossly insulting and reflects the husband’s detestation of the wife’s advisers. It is completely unacceptable that he should use a witness statement written for the court as a platform to vent his spleen in this manner.

Merry Christmas everyone, and may none of 2019s witness statements be as problematic as that for you.