The Court of Appeal held that a perjury conviction based on the appellant's sworn denial of murder at his earlier trial — at which he had been acquitted on appeal — constituted an abuse of process and a breach of the double jeopardy principle, because the perjury trial was effectively conducted as a re-trial for murder. The Court held that for such a prosecution to proceed, there must be new substantial acceptable evidence not available at the original trial, and found that the evidence relied upon (a jailhouse confession of dubious weight, opportunity evidence, similar fact evidence previously criticised on appeal, and odontological evidence based on the same underlying data) did not meet that threshold. The conviction was set aside and a verdict of acquittal entered, with the Attorney-General's sentence appeal also dismissed.
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