The "very flavour of the case" led to the decision to transfer the Colin Bouwer murder trial to the High Court at Christchurch, Justice Graham Panckhurst said in his June 2001 decision.
He found a Dunedin trial would entail a real risk in terms of fairness and impartiality.
South African Bouwer was charged and later found guilty of murdering wife Annette by poisoning.
He was head of the University of Otago department of psychiatric medicine and, while he did not have a high profile before the case, he did by the time Justice Panckhurst considered the transfer application, the judge said.
The case contained all elements of high drama, intrigue, a suggested love affair, pathos and tragedy, akin to the plot of a novel, he said.
And the publicity in relation to the case had been considerable.
While he accepted such coverage was factual and not sensational, he judged its impact to be substantial.
That alone would not have been enough to warrant moving the case, he said.
He also referred to the broad nature of the investigation and what he called the university and hospital dimension.
These institutions provided the setting from which the alleged motive emerged and the place where Mrs Bouwer's treatment was provided and, after her death, the scene where the suspicions about her death first arose.
Both institutions were very much at the heart of Dunedin life, he said.
No one of these several threads would be decisive in itself.
Rather, it was the combination of them.
In addition, Justice Panckhurst said the Dunedin court building was to be undergoing refurbishment that year and the trial might have to be held in whole, or in part, in temporary accommodation.
That was not desirable for a case of that length and complexity.
