A complainant's own evidence of her distressed condition following an alleged sexual offence, while relevant and admissible as part of the narrative, cannot constitute corroboration of her account because corroborative evidence must be independent of the testimony corroborated. The Queensland Benchbook Direction 67.1, insofar as it directs that it is customary to warn juries to give little weight to distressed condition evidence because it can be easily feigned, should no longer be used.
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