A trial judge sitting without a jury in the Children's Court is entitled to accept the evidence of an intoxicated complainant who was passing in and out of consciousness, where the complainant's account of the essential elements of the offence is internally consistent and corroborated by medical evidence and surrounding circumstances, notwithstanding the possibility of honest mistake. The gradual firming of a complainant's recollection as intoxication wears off is not necessarily reconstruction.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 2 later cases that cite this judgment.