The Court of Appeal held that inconsistencies in a complainant's evidence about the timing of historical child sexual offences, combined with evidence that the accused was absent from the relevant address for a 10-month period, did not render the guilty verdicts unreasonable where the complainant expressed genuine uncertainty about dates at trial and gave otherwise cogent evidence including accurate descriptions of the house interior; unlike Pell, the absence evidence here was not of sufficient cogency to compel a reasonable doubt. On the DPP sentence appeal, the Court held that cumulation orders effectively imposing only 4 months' imprisonment per incident for three separate incidents of sexual penetration of a child under 10 were manifestly inadequate, even accounting for the offender's mild intellectual disability (attracting Muldrock and Verdins principle 5), youth, and 30-year delay without reoffending; the Court resentenced with increased cumulation from a total effective sentence of 7 years 8 months to 10 years, and non-parole period from 5 years to 6 years 3 months, emphasising that ss 6D and 6E of the Sentencing Act 1991 modify the totality principle for serious sexual offenders.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 1 later case that cites this judgment.
1 of the 1 citing case carries a classified treatment. How each court treated it is available to signed-in members.