Lucas v The Queen [1970] HCA 14

High Court of Australia Barwick C.J. Owen and Walsh JJ. Lucas v The Queen [1970] HCA 14

ORDER Extend time to give notice of appeal and notice of motion. Leave to appeal refused: appeal dismissed.

Cur. adv. vult.

The Court delivered the following written judgment:—

June 2 Barwick C.J., Owen and Walsh JJ.

The appellant was convicted in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory on 8th August 1968 of the offences of attempted murder and attempted rape. He was sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour for eight years for the attempted murder and for five years for the attempted rape, the sentences to be served concurrently and to commence from 23rd September 1968, the date they were imposed.

He now applies for an extension of time in which to appeal on a point of law and for leave to appeal in respect of some matters of fact or of mixed fact and law and against sentence. In case such an extension should be granted, he has lodged a notice of appeal and notices of motion for leave to appeal.

The facts evidenced in support of the indictment were few and undisputed. The defences were an absence of intent in the case of each charge due to the state of intoxication in which the applicant appears to have been at the relevant time and insanity at the time of the performance of the acts constituting the offences, again due to alcoholic excesses.

Apart from a complaint as to the emphasis given by the learned trial judge to some facts—a matter which even if made out would not lead us in this case to grant the requisite leave to appeal—the only submissions made as to the summing up were, firstly, that the trial judge had not canvassed with the jury all the statements of the appellant, which if accepted by the jury could, so it was claimed, have founded a verdict of not guilty on the grounds of insanity. Secondly, that the trial judge had not informed the jury of, and had not explained to them, the consequences of such a verdict: thirdly, that, although his Honour had directed the jury properly as to the ingredients of insanity as a defence, his failure to discuss the evidence which, as counsel claimed, tended to establish insanity and to relate that evidence to the legal elements of insanity, amounted to a failure adequately to instruct the jury on that defence.