The Court acquitted the accused on all counts, holding that the prosecution failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt that the accused was the person depicted in CCTV footage committing the offences, where the footage was of poor quality, the accused's in-court appearance bore only some resemblance to the offender, clothing seized from a shared apartment was not positively identified as belonging to the accused, and no forensic evidence linked the accused to the crime. On the s 138 Evidence Act challenge, the Court held that police failure to activate body-worn cameras before obtaining consent to search premises contravened s 43B of the Crimes (Surveillance Devices) Act 2010 (ACT), but found no causal link between that contravention and the obtaining of evidence, and admitted the evidence. The Court also held that police informing an occupier of the possibility of a crime scene being established if consent to search was refused did not constitute an impropriety or contravention of s 210D of the Crimes Act 1900 (ACT), as that provision is only enlivened when police actually seek to establish a crime scene, and there was no evidence of systemic misuse of crime scene powers.
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