'Likely' in the definition of water pollution in the Protection of the Environment Operations Act 1997 means a real and not remote chance or possibility, regardless of whether it is less or more than a fifty per cent chance, following the construction adopted by Smart J in Mathews v Goulburn Wool Processors and the High Court in Boughey v The Queen. A summons that states the legal elements of a pollution offence but fails to specify the act or omission constituting the offence is defective but curable by s 16(2) of the Criminal Procedure Act 1986. Latent duplicity or lack of particularity in a summons will not vitiate a conviction in summary proceedings where no miscarriage of justice has occurred and the trial judge's reasons show conviction for a single offence.
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