The Court held that a trial judge may give a modified Liberato direction rather than the full unqualified direction formulated in De Silva v The Queen where the evidence and statutory framework (here, substantial intoxication negating consent and the requirement to assess the accused's belief on reasonable grounds disregarding self-induced intoxication) mean that acceptance of the accused's evidence would not necessarily mandate acquittal. The Court confirmed that a Liberato direction may be confined to a particular element of the offence and that rigid adherence to the Bench Book formulation is not required, provided the direction is sufficient to protect against the risk that the jury treats a preference for the complainant's evidence as sufficient to establish guilt. The omission of a standard inferences direction does not occasion a miscarriage of justice where the summing up as a whole, including repeated emphasis on the Crown's obligation to prove the accused's state of mind beyond reasonable doubt and to eliminate reasonable possibilities, conveyed the substance of that direction.
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