The District Court dismissed an application for a costs certificate under s 2 of the Costs in Criminal Cases Act 1967 (NSW) following acquittal on four counts of child sexual offences. The Court held that although there were doubts about the complainant's credibility and reliability — including inconsistencies with three other Crown witnesses on a material fact, implausible assertions about the accused and his former partner, the abandonment of one charge after the complainant did not come up to proof, and equivocal DNA evidence — the complainant was not 'very substantially lacking in credit' such that it would have been unreasonable to institute the proceedings. The existence of contemporaneous complaint evidence, DNA evidence capable of supporting the Crown case, and the fundamentally 'word on word' nature of the case meant these were matters appropriately left for jury determination.
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