MALAYSIAN banker Lorrain Osman is asking the High Court to quash magistrate Mr Hugh Sinclair's refusal to give him bail after the magistrate was seen talking to a Crown counsel and co-defendant George Tan Soon-gin's barrister after last week's hearing.
Osman alleges that Mr Sinclair was raising the possibility of asking the London Queen's Counsel in the case, Mr Clive Nicholls, to give him a reference after he retires from the judiciary next year.
It is claimed that the alleged attempt by Mr Sinclair to solicit a personal favour from leading counsel for the Crown, shortly after giving two decisions in the Crown's favour, gives rise to a reasonable suspicion of bias.
Osman claims justice was neither done, nor seen to be done.
His solicitor, Mr Colin Cohen, said yesterday: ''I think it reflects the words that Osman used in his bail application that question marks concerning the fairness of the trial may very well be raised.'' Mr Cohen, who saw the conversation and asked counsel immediately what was being discussed outside court in his absence, yesterday obtained leave from Mr Justice Barnett for a judicial review of Mr Sinclair's two decisions in the Osman/Tan case on the grounds of breach of natural justice.
At that review, which Mr Cohen hopes will take place next month, he is also seeking to quash Mr Sinclair's adjournment of the case for four months last week, an application opposed by Osman.