The Court of Appeal allowed appeals by all three appellants against convictions arising from a joint trial, holding that misdirections in the summing-up rendered the verdicts unsafe. Key issues included whether reference to s 8 Criminal Code (Qld) in directions prejudiced one accused who was charged only with manslaughter, whether the trial judge's failure to identify which specific lies were relied upon to show consciousness of guilt made the verdict unsafe, the admissibility of out-of-court admissions by one co-accused as evidence in favour of another co-accused and against the maker, and whether the judge was required to direct the jury that an accused is not obliged to raise issues in cross-examination that may damage his own defence. The Court ordered retrials for all appellants, with Martin and Sambo to be retried on murder charges and Klinge on manslaughter.
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