Where evidence of flight from a crime scene is intractably neutral — that is, the innocent and incriminating explanations are equally plausible — a trial judge must not direct the jury that it may use that evidence to assess the accused's credibility, because doing so necessarily requires the jury to first engage in impermissible incriminating conduct reasoning. In a word-against-word sexual offence case that is not overwhelming, such an erroneous direction will constitute a substantial miscarriage of justice.
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