The majority upheld murder convictions in a circumstantial case where the central issue was whether the Crown had excluded the hypothesis that the deceased wife killed the children and committed suicide. The dissent by Kirby J provides detailed analysis of the proper scope of forensic pathology evidence in murder trials and the Crown's duty to present balanced expert evidence where witnesses supporting both hypotheses are available. The case illustrates the application of the M v The Queen test for unreasonable verdicts in cases turning heavily on competing expert evidence.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 4 later cases that cite this judgment.
1 of the 4 citing cases carry a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.