Under s 110 of the Evidence Act 2008 (Vic), an accused is entitled to lead evidence of good character in a particular respect, and rebuttal evidence must be relevant and confined to that respect. Traffic offences committed after the alleged offending are irrelevant to rebuttal of good character in a sexual offence trial. A trial judge's erroneous ruling that irrelevant rebuttal evidence would be permitted, which effectively deters the defence from leading good character evidence, constitutes a substantial miscarriage of justice even where the decision not to lead the evidence was nominally a forensic choice by counsel.
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