Where objective evidence (such as photographs, CCTV footage, and contemporaneous complaints) strongly supports a factual conclusion, a trial judge's failure to make a finding on that issue, or dismissal of the issue without engaging with the objective evidence, may constitute a substantial wrong or miscarriage warranting a new trial. In police misconduct cases, the usual deference to trial judge credibility findings may be attenuated where the witness is an experienced police officer, and a civil wrong committed by officers of the State should not readily be allowed to go unremedied even where damages are likely to be modest.
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