The failure of an accused to give evidence in a circumstantial case, while not evidence of guilt, permits the jury and the appellate court to more readily accept the Crown case, and this is of greater weight where the accused alone can explain the relevant facts. Circumstantial evidence must be assessed as a whole, not item by item, and the ultimate inference of guilt must be the only reasonable inference open on the totality of the evidence.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 17 later cases that cite this judgment.