The Supreme Court held that a magistrate who purported to give herself an s 80B delay-in-complaint direction and a Crofts direction nevertheless committed material error by engaging in the very stereotypical reasoning those directions are designed to prevent — specifically, by treating a child complainant's demeanour during an interview where she did not disclose as evidence she was not embarrassed, and by finding 'no good reasons' for delay while ignoring the complainant's explanations of youth, embarrassment and disgust. The Court further held that s 165B of the Evidence Act modifies the common law on forensic disadvantage by necessary intendment even in non-jury proceedings, so that a magistrate cannot give a forensic disadvantage direction based solely on the mere passage of time without identifying an actual significant forensic disadvantage. The Crofts direction remains available in the ACT alongside s 80B of the EMP Act (which does not implicitly exclude it), but the factfinder cannot attach significance to delay on the basis of unfounded assumptions or stereotypes.
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