In an appeal against conviction following a judge-alone trial on wholly circumstantial evidence, the appellate court must independently assess the whole of the evidence but give appropriate weight to the trial judge's advantages, including demeanour assessments from police interview recordings. Where the trial judge's reasoning relies on assessments of the accused's manner in recorded police interviews, the appellate court should view those recordings. The [name withheld] v [name withheld] principle that an appellate court is in as good a position as the trial judge to draw inferences from established facts applies to judge-alone criminal trials. A 2-1 split on the ultimate question of whether accidental drowning was excluded as a reasonable possibility illustrates the difficulty of circumstantial murder cases where the accused's account is the only direct evidence of events.
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