R v H

The Queensland Court of Appeal allowed the appeal against conviction for indecent dealing with a child under 16, setting aside the conviction and entering a verdict of acquittal. The Court found the verdict unsafe and unsatisfactory on the basis that the complainant's evidence (a five-year-old boy interviewed 13 days after the alleged offence) lacked spontaneity, contained internal inconsistencies, was elicited through suggestive questioning by the interviewer, and was contradicted by the complainant's own cross-examination denials. The Court also held that evidence of behavioural changes in the child, without expert evidence establishing a causal connection to the alleged offence, could not properly serve as corroboration or confirmation of the offence, and that both the trial judge's summing-up references to such changes and the Crown Prosecutor's reliance on them were improper.