In a circumstantial murder case, a trial judge is not only entitled but obliged to direct the jury against groundless speculation where defence counsel invites the jury to infer an alternative hypothesis (here, that the deceased was having an affair and was killed as a consequence) from evidence that cannot reasonably support such an inference. The principle in Barca v The Queen — that a jury cannot be asked to engage in groundless speculation — applies to prevent the defence from building inference upon inference without evidentiary foundation, even though the defence bears no onus of proof. A trial judge's charge on lies as consciousness of guilt should be read fairly and as a whole, and minor imprecisions in language will not constitute misdirection where the overall direction is clear.
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