R v R [1990] HCA 19

High Court of Australia Mason C.J. Dawson, Toohey, Gaudron and McHugh JJ. R v R [1990] HCA 19

ORDER Application for special leave to appeal granted. Appeal dismissed.

Cur. adv. vult.

The Court delivered the following written judgment:—

May 24 Mason C.J.,Dawson, Toohey, Gaudron and McHugh JJ.

The applicant seeks special leave to appeal against a number of convictions for the defilement of a girl under seventeen years of age and indecent assault of a female. Each offence was alleged to have been committed upon one or other of three complainants between June 1982 and October 1986. During that period, defilement was an offence under s. 124(1) of the Criminal Code Tas. and indecent assault of a female was an offence under s. 127 of the Code. Both provisions were contained in Ch. XIV of the Code, which was headed "Crimes Against Morality". Also during that period, s. 136(1), which is in the same chapter, provided:

No person shall be convicted of any crime under the provisions of any of the foregoing sections of this chapter, or of an attempt to commit the same, on the evidence of the person in respect of whom the crime is alleged to have been committed or attempted, unless the evidence of such person is corroborated in some material particular by other evidence implicating the accused.

The applicant, who was charged on 12 November 1987, was committed for trial on 16 May 1988. His trial commenced on 13 February 1989. Earlier, by an amendment to the Criminal Code which came into force on 26 November 1987, s. 136 of the Code was repealed and a new section substituted for it. The new section reads:

(1) At the trial of a person accused of a crime under chapter XIV or XX, no rule of law or practice shall require a judge to give a warning to the jury to the effect that it is unsafe to convict the person on the uncorroborated evidence of a person against whom the crime is alleged to have been committed.