HCP v WA

[2019] WASCA 38

Western Australia Court of Appeal

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Interrogate

Catchwords

1. Criminal Law
2. › Appeal against conviction
3. › Sexual offences against children
4. › Admissibility of evidence
5. › School report concerning incident involving complainant
6. › Whether school report was relevant to any fact in issue
7. › Whether school report concerned collateral facts
8. › Criminal Code (WA), s 320(2)
9. › Evidence Act 1906 (WA), s 79C
1. Evidence
2. › Relevance
3. › Evidence assisting evaluation of other evidence
4. › Whether evidence of complainant's involvement in schoolyard incident could rationally affect assessment of probability of facts in issue
5. › Collateral evidence rule
6. › Whether evidence went only to credibility of witness
7. › Evidence Act 1906 (WA), s 25

Quick Take

Evidence of a child complainant's involvement in a schoolyard incident involving non-sexual behaviour between children (telling classmates to put fingers in each other's bottoms as a joke) is irrelevant to charges of serious sexual offending by an adult against that child, and is not probative of the complainant's knowledge of sexual matters. Such evidence concerns only collateral facts going to credibility and cannot be adduced to contradict the complainant's answers in cross-examination.