A COURT case has been extended by a day so staff can properly translate the accused’s thick Geordie accent.
Perth Sheriff Court was told Denis Boyd’s North-east of England accent was so strong staff at the Crown Office in Scotland had been unable to understand it.
Boyd, 38, Main Road, Redgorton, Perthshire, is alleged to have carried out a sex attack on a woman in Victoria Street, Perth, on August 29 last year.
He denies the charge against him and a trial will take place later this summer.
The court was told large swathes of a police interview given by Mr Boyd was missing from a transcript because of his rich Geordie brogue.
Sheriff Gillian Wade agreed to schedule an extra day in court, prior to the start of his trial, to deal with the issue of Mr Boyd’s accent.
Defending, solicitor Nicky Brown, said: “There is a difficulty with the transcript of his police interview.
“The difficulty is that the accused has a very, very strong Geordie accent and part of his response is missing.
“It is not just part of it, but substantial parts of it. I will need to go through it with him and put in the responses which are missing.
“It is the accused’s position that he gave information to the police at the time.
“We will view the DVD of the interview and make a draft to give to the Crown and the court.”
Procurator fiscal depute John Malpass said: “That is the current position with the transcript. There are large tracts of the interview missing.”
Sheriff Wade said: “I appreciate there has been a disclosure issue, but I am not going to rant and rave about it because that is not going to help.
“In the first instance the Crown have to make sure disclosure is made in time. There is clearly a problem with the DVD and both parties need to know what is said at the interview. The problem has been identified.
“I am not going to give anyone into trouble.
“I will continue on a joint motion for a further first diet for the missing responses from the DVD to be inserted into the transcript and for the transcript to be agreed.”
The clerk of the court told Boyd an extra court day was being scheduled “for the police interview to effectively be translated.”
The word Geordie refers both to a native of Newcastle-upon-Tyne and to the dialect of the inhabitants of the city and the surrounding areas.
There are several theories about the exact origins of the term Geordie, but it is accepted that it comes from the local pet name for George.
George was a very common name among the coal miners of the region in the North East but one theory is that the name was taken from George (Geordie) Stephenson, a mining and railway engineer who hailed from the North-east and designed a miners lamp which was called a “Geordie”.
Another is that it derives from a term of abuse coined by the Jacobites in the 1745 Rebellion because of the defence of the town of Newcastle against them by supporters of King George (Geordie) II.
According to an online dialect expert, “three factors make this dialect uniquely difficult for outside listeners.
First, Geordie pronunciation – even in milder accents – has many features uncommon among urban English accents.
“Then there’s the fact that Geordie seems to undergo an unusual amount of vowel reduction, and the dialect boasts a very unusual grammar and lexicon.”
In 2008, Geordie was voted the “most attractive” accent in England.
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