Leading defence lawyer Mark Pettingill has called for court room witnesses to be given microphones to amplify their voices after claiming mumbled responses could lead to mis-recording of evidence.

Poor acoustics and shy witnesses struggling to be overheard over noisy air conditioners often mean judges are left struggling to hear what has be heard.

Testimony is constantly interrupted as witnesses are told to speak up. Mr. Pettingill said: "It is a problem. "It's more of concern when you know that the judge keeps a record and sometimes a person can say they didn't do something and it could get recorded as they did. I have seen that many a time, words being misunderstood."

Supreme Courts had microphones installed two years ago to record evidence but have yet to be used in earnest. And the microphones can not be used to amplify said Supreme Court registrar Charlene Scott.

However Director of Public Prosecutions Kulandra Ratneser said he didn't think softly spoken witnesses were a problem and he said how loudly a witness spoke gave clues about their evidence. Witnessed often dropped their voices for difficult questions and raised them as they got excited, said Mr. Ratneser.

However, he expressed sympathy for the media who were even further away from the witnesses and sometimes struggled to hear testimony. He said they needed to be placed nearer the witness. Mr. Pettingill also called for video taping of the grilling of suspects in custody to protect the Police against allegations of brutality and make sure a clear transcript was given to the court.

He said it would save the public purse a six-figure sum every year as it would eliminate the need for many pre-trial hearings as defence lawyers on legal aid and Government prosecutors argued over police interview evidence.

However Mr. Ratneser agreed video taping was an excellent idea but warned it would extremely expensive as they still needed to be edited in order not to expose juries to prejudicial information such as policemen mentioning prior convictions.

"I think it is an excellent idea. I have done ten years of trials in Australia using videos. "It's the best type of evidence but everything is a matter of dollars and cents."