The Supreme Court held that a deceased victim's Family Court affidavit was admissible as a hearsay exception under s 79C(1)(a) of the Evidence Act 1906 (WA), as a statement made by a qualified person who is now dead. Applying the three-step Greenaway framework and the High Court's reasoning in Moore v The King that inability to cross-examine alone cannot justify exclusion (as that would swallow the exception), the Court found the affidavit's probative value as evidence of ongoing marital issues was not outweighed by undue prejudice, subject to redaction of speculative, opinion-based and particularly prejudicial paragraphs and the giving of strong jury directions about the adversarial context and one-sided nature of the document.
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