The Court held that the Crown was not precluded under s 146 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1986 (NSW) from calling the accused's wife as a witness despite late disclosure of the intention to call her, where the late disclosure arose from a major change in the defence case and the defence's own s 143 disclosure was deficient. On the s 18 Evidence Act objection, the Court accepted the low threshold for establishing likelihood of harm to the spousal relationship and children was met, but held the harm did not outweigh the desirability of the evidence given the gravity of the murder charge, the significance of the direct evidence placing the accused in the vehicle, and the speculative nature of the feared harms.
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