1For the purposes of cl 7(3)(b) of Schedule 1 of the Criminal Procedure Act 2004 (WA), the 'acts or omissions' out of which offences arise are not confined to the elements of the offence but extend to the broader circumstances in which the offending occurred, including the historical relationship between the accused and the complainant; where violence and drug offences all arose from the conduct of a drug dealing enterprise and the accused's use of the complainant as a coerced drug runner, they arose substantially out of the same or closely related acts or omissions and were properly joined.
2Cross-admissibility of evidence is relevant to both the joinder inquiry and the prejudice assessment under s 133 of the CPA; where evidence of violence offences is admissible at the trial of drug offences as relationship evidence explaining the complainant's subservience to the accused, severance would achieve nothing as the same evidence would be led at both trials.
3The primary judge erred by focusing on differences in the nature and timing of the offences without engaging with the common underlying circumstances — the accused's drug dealing enterprise — from which all counts arose; the correctness standard applied to the evaluative joinder question on appeal.
