The trial of a lawyer charged with stealing half a million dollars from a former client failed to go ahead as planned yesterday due to a snowbound witness who failed to arrive in Bermuda on time.

Julian Hall is being tried in the Supreme Court on five counts of stealing a total of $551,044 from wealthy elderly widow Betty Lorraine McMahon between 1995 and 1996.

Hall, a former MP and Shadow Minister of the Environment, was officially declared bankrupt and banned from practising law in January, 2000.

He was ordered in December, 1997 to pay Mrs. McMahon $1.6 million plus seven percent interest. As legal proceedings dragged on, he was charged with stealing from the woman. He has denied those charges.

The case is being tried by Chief Justice Richard Ground and prosecuted by Crown counsel Kulandra Ratneser. Hall is representing himself.

Hall will not be sitting in the dock.

"It is important that you remember that you are the defendant and not the attorney in this trial and that places certain restrictions," said Mr. Justice Ground at the start of proceedings.

"A certain purdah is imposed on you that would not be impressed on an advocate. Comments to Mr. Ratneser are not permissible. Remember that you are surrounded by two burly Police officers and have the glass walls of the dock around you."

Hall said that in the last few days he had "kept a cool head" and done his best to behave.

Mrs. McMahon will not be a witness in the trial because she is mentally ill.

Mr. Ratneser made his opening comments to the jury, saying that Hall had taken advantage of Mrs. McMahon's mental illness to get her to sign a power of attorney. He had then used his legal privileges to extract large sums of money from her bank account to pay off his personal debts.

Bermuda Homes was about to foreclose on his house, Woodley, and he owed money to various places including the Bermuda Government for failure to pay payroll tax and he was behind on his child support payments, among other things.

"He was a man in deep financial distress," said Mr. Ratneser. "He was a desperate man. He desperately needed a large lump sum of money."

The eight woman, four man jury was sent out of the court for the rest of the day, due to legal arguments over the admissibility of certain witnesses planned for the trial.