Evidence of prior violent conduct by an accused towards a complainant in a sexual offence case may be inadmissible as 'relationship evidence' where the assaults are remote in time and there is no nexus between the prior violence and the sexual conduct charged. The fact that the complainant remained in the relationship and bore children after the earlier assaults weakens the relevance of that evidence to the issues of consent and belief in consent. Where such evidence is wrongly admitted, the question whether the conviction was 'inevitable' under Baini requires careful assessment of whether the applicant's version of events was capable of raising a doubt as to belief in consent, even where the Crown case is strong.
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