The Queensland Court of Appeal upheld the murder conviction of a doctor who killed a patient by morphine injection to prevent her pursuing a professional misconduct complaint. The Court held that similar fact evidence of the appellant's propensity to drug and sexually assault female patients was properly admitted under Pfennig v R principles, as it was relevant to establishing motive and the circumstances of the killing. On the hearsay issue, even assuming that evidence of an unidentified caller's complaint about being drugged was technically inadmissible under ss 93B and 93C of the Evidence Act 1977 (Qld), the Court applied the proviso under s 688E of the Criminal Code, finding no substantial miscarriage of justice where the evidence was not objected to at trial for rational forensic reasons and the remaining evidence was sufficient to sustain the conviction.
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