The Court of Appeal held that a trial judge's characterisation of mandatory directions as mere 'comments' that the jury could disregard constituted error, particularly for forensic disadvantage warnings under s 61(1A) and burden of proof directions. The Court held that while breach of the rule in Browne v Dunn permits comment on the weight of evidence not put to a witness, a direction that the jury may reject an accused's evidence and accept a complainant's evidence requires careful instruction about possible innocent explanations for counsel's failure to cross-examine. The Court also held that counts alleging sexual offences between specified dates without identifying particular acts from multiple similar incidents created latent ambiguity requiring proper particularisation.
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