Where parties in a criminal trial have agreed on the sufficiency of cross-examination, it is an error for the trial judge to raise with the jury in the summing-up the failure to cross-examine beyond that agreement, as this may imply an onus on the accused and exclude reasonable possibilities of innocence from the jury's consideration. A single redirection at the end of the summing-up is insufficient to cure multiple references to matters not 'suggested' spread throughout the summing-up. Where misdirections go to the very basis of the jury's consideration of whether the Crown proved its case beyond reasonable doubt, the appellate court should resolve an unreasonable verdict ground with little regard to the jury's advantage in seeing and hearing witnesses.
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