The ACT Court of Appeal held that defence counsel's incompetent tender of a hearsay statement — the only evidence sufficient to convict — constituted a miscarriage of justice requiring the conviction and sentence to be set aside. The Court held that under s 21(1) of the Human Rights Act 2004 (ACT), it is not invariably necessary to show the outcome would have been different to establish that a conviction cannot stand where due process and the right to a fair trial have been denied, though if conviction was inevitable notwithstanding the defects, the breach may not suffice. The Court also provided detailed analysis of the Evidence Act provisions governing prior inconsistent statements and hearsay, concluding that the prosecution could not have successfully tendered the statement under s 66 given the operation of s 66(3), and that the prosecution's decision to call the informant before the complainant contributed to the circumstances giving rise to the miscarriage.
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