High Court of Australia
IN THE HIGH. COURT OF AUSTRALIA
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
Oral. Judgment delivered at... SYoRCY.
'A. &. Brooks, Government Prine, Melbourne C.5072/66
VAN_SOUSSEN
ve
THE QUEEN
ORDER
Appeal allowed. Order of the Court of Criminal
"Ene i Appeal set aside and in lieu thereof order that the appeal
1 to that Court be allowed and the convictions of the appellant
quashed.
VAN _SOMEREN
' i
JUDGMENT BARWICK C.J. (ORAL)
oy
VANS
Ve
In this matter, the Court granted special leave to appeal and on this appeal the counts of the indictment which are material to be considered are the second and
third counts.
In respect of the second count which charged the accused with fraudulently applying property of the company to purposes other than the lawful purposes of the company, the Court of Criminal Appeal ordered a new trial, but the Crown'has conceded before us that, having regard to the attitude which it took at the original trial, there is really no material upon which a new trial could be had of that count. IT am of the opinion that that is a proper attitude on the part of the Crown and accordingly the conviction on that count will be quashed.
As to the third count, the accused was charged that being an officer of a company, Rural Developments Pty. Limited, he, with intent to defraud, did coneur in the making of a false entry in a book of account of the company, namely, a journal, by causing falsely to be entered in such book, under a certain date, a certain entry.
As to this count, a number of matters have been discussed in the argument but it 'suffices, in my opinion, to say that having looked through the whole of the evidence
and heard what the Crown has had to point to as evidence of
i | }
the fact that the accused did concur by causing the entry in question to be made in the book, I am of the opinion that there was no evidence at all before the jury that the accused concurred by causing the entry to be made in the journal. For that reason, in my opinion, the conviction on this count ought to be quashed. Being of that opinion, there is no need for me to enter upon any discussion of the other matters which have been agitated before us in the argument of the appeal. :
We try to embed the page this law was scraped from. If the site blocks framing, you still get the link and a local excerpt.
Last checked with source on —
Checking whether the official page can be embedded…
Plain-English simplify of this law: a short summary, key points, and both sides of the argument. Generated on first view via Replicate, then cached. Vote on what helps your study.
No study brief is cached for this law yet. Sign up to generate a plain-English brief.
Sign up to generate