A trial judge who analyses contemporaneous documents individually to determine whether each document excludes the plaintiff's version of events, rather than considering all the evidence as a whole, may effectively reverse the onus of proof and commit appellable error. Where hospital doctors give evidence of their history-taking practices and the significance they place on recording how accidents occurred, a trial judge must have proper regard to that evidence when assessing the weight of hospital records. The failure to call a witness who completed a document inconsistent with the plaintiff's case may give rise to a Jones v Dunkel inference.
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