R v SFB

The Queensland Court of Appeal held by majority ([name withheld] and [name withheld]; [name withheld] dissenting) that a guilty verdict on strangulation in a domestic setting was not inconsistent with acquittals on rape counts arising from the same incident, because the quality and extent of evidence relevant to proving lack of consent differed between the counts — in particular, photographs of redness on the complainant's neck taken immediately after the incident were directly corroborative of the strangulation charge but not the rape charges. The majority emphasised that an acquittal does not amount to a positive finding that the relevant act was consensual, but rather reflects the jury not being satisfied beyond reasonable doubt, and that where evidence of differing quality supports different counts, the jury is entitled to reach different verdicts even for acts occurring in the same episode. [name withheld] in dissent would have allowed the appeal on the basis that doubt as to the complainant's reliability on consent for the sexual intercourse logically extended to her account of the strangulation occurring without consent.