On a prosecution appeal against acquittal in a judge-alone trial under s 24(2)(e)(ii) of the Criminal Appeals Act 2004 (WA), the appeal proceeds by way of rehearing, but the appellate court must identify error before interfering with the verdict. The Warren v Coombes distinction between credit-based findings (to which considerable deference is owed) and inference-based findings (which the appellate court is equally well-placed to make) applies to such appeals. A trial judge's comprehensive assessment of circumstantial evidence will not be disturbed merely because the appellate court might have weighed the evidence differently, provided the trial judge considered the totality of the evidence as required by R v Hillier.
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