GELICHEV V. THE QUEEN

GELICHEV

REASONS FOR JUDGHERT

OPA ment delivered at..... SS ONEY. : WEDNESDAY, 9th DIOS

; GELICHEV

Ve

THE QUEEN

ORDER

Appeal allowed.

accused discharged.

Conviction quashed and

(8

JUDGMENT

(ORAL)

GELICHEV

ve

BARWICK C.J.

GELICHEV Vo

THE QUEEN

The applicant was indicted in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory on the first count for rape and on the second count for indecent assault. He was acauitted of rape put convicted of indecent assault. He was sentenced to imprisonment for a period of 15 months.

He now appeals to this Court against his conviction and seeks leave to appeal against the sentence imposed upon him. The grounds of his appeal include the following, namely, that there was no evidence to support the conviction for indecent assault, that the trial Judge failed adeauately to direct the jury in connection with the count for indecent assault as to the dangers of acting on the uncorroborated evidence of the woman alleged to have been indecently assaulted, that the trial Judge failed to direct the jury that it was upon the Crown to negative consent to the indecent assault, that the trial Judge failed properly to explain to the jury the function of the evidence of a complaint in the proof of the charge of rape.

The course which was taken in the trial in relation

to the count of indecent assault was scarcely satisfactory and

2.

no doubt contributed to the paucity of the summing up upon that count. The prosecutor, in opening to the jury, told them that the main charge was rape but that they may have to decide - and I quote what he said - "... whether, apart from the rape or instead of the full offence of rape, whether there was an assault on Margaret Ann Sanders at the same place and the same time; an assault by the accused accompanied by circumstances of indecency". That ends the quotation from the prosecutor's opening. ras