Where a co-accused's police interview is relied upon by the Crown as true in the co-accused's case and that interview corroborates the evidence of Crown witnesses who are also witnesses in the applicant's case, jury directions to disregard the interview may be insufficient to prevent a miscarriage of justice, particularly where the Crown Prosecutor's address has drawn the jury's attention to the consistency between the interview and the witnesses' evidence. The prejudice in such cases is qualitatively different from the standard cut-throat defence scenario because the jury must first accept the interview as reliable against the co-accused and then disregard that conclusion when considering the applicant's case. Adams J also questioned whether the comparative weakness of the applicant's case is a necessary element of the Middis test.
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