Not guilty: client acquitted by jury of multiple historical sexual offence allegations
This matter commenced with the client unfortunately being held in custody by police on multiple historical sexual offence allegations. The allegations had surfaced out of the blue from the complainant, a relative of the client, and related to allegations over a decade earlier.
We successfully obtained bail for the client in the Magistrates Court on the basis that the allegations were weak, and there were appropriate conditions that could be put in place to deal with any concerns raised by the prosecution. This prevented the client spending potentially up to two years in custody on remand on charges that would ultimately result in an acquittal.
On review of the disclosure, it was clear that the evidence against the client was weak. Further, that the complainant had already made significant prior inconsistent statements to a counsellor which could seriously undermine their credit at trial.
We progressed the matter to the District Court stage. In that court, we made an application to obtain disclosure of the prior inconsistent statements made to the counsellor. This is a difficult process which involves firstly obtaining leave to argue the case regarding what are called ‘protected communications’ and then obtaining an order that the communications be disclosed. Two separate hearings before a Judge are required. We successfully argued, firstly, for leave to apply to disclose the statement, and secondly, that the statement should be disclosed.
The matter proceeded to a pre-recording of the complainant’s evidence. James’ devastating cross-examination of the complainant took place over almost 3 hours and revealed a number of issues with their evidence, including numerous inconsistencies. Further, James was able to establish an arguable motive to lie through various aspects of the cross-examination.
At trial, we presented a detailed defence case which involved calling 5 separate defence witnesses. The defence focused on establishing the complainant’s motive to lie, whilst also presenting a credible and persuasive alternate version of events to that put forth by the complainant.
The jury took a mere 40 minutes to acquit our client. This was an excellent outcome which meant the client could finally resume their life after almost two years of intense stress and living in limbo.