Where a party to litigation who could contradict the opposing party's account fails to give evidence, the trial judge must give significant weight to that failure in evaluating the evidence — this goes beyond the narrower Jones v Dunkel inference and requires the court to more readily accept the unchallenged sworn testimony. Additionally, prior inconsistent statements must be properly proved through the mechanisms in ss 43 and 44 of the Evidence Act 2008 (Vic), as mere cross-examination on the contents of documents that are denied by the witness does not make those contents evidence.
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