R v Al Batat & Ors (No 20) [2020] NSWSC 1319

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: R v Al Batat & Ors (No 20) [2020] NSWSC 1319 Hearing dates: 24 September 2020 Date of orders: 24 September 2020 Decision date: 01 October 2020 Jurisdiction: Common Law Before: Hamill J Decision: (1) Leave granted to allow the witness to revive her memory under s 32 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW). (2) Leave granted for the Prosecutor to cross-examine the witness under s 38(1)(b) of the Evidence Act. Catchwords: CRIMINAL LAW - application to revive memory - application by Prosecutor to cross-examine own witness - mysterious approach taken by counsel - witness with astonishingly bad or selective memory - relevant considerations - whether lack of evidence equates to unfavourable evidence - whether prior inconsistent statement - whether witness making genuine attempt to give evidence - the misfortune of sitting in court 6.1 at the Downing Centre - peculiarities of the room - the ubiquitous Mr Quilter Legislation Cited: Evidence Act NSW (1995), ss 32, 38, 192 Cases Cited: Adam v The Queen (2001) 207 CLR 96; [2001] HCA 57 R v Al Batat & Ors (No 1) [2020] NSWSC 967 Category: Procedural rulings Parties: Regina Abdallah Hassan Al Batat Ying Cheng Luo Ian Fan Jaiyu Liu Jacob Blake Bayliss Nai An Li Representation: Counsel: P Hogan (Crown) B Rigg SC (Al Batat) R Webb (Luo) T Quilter (Fan) N Carroll (Liu) A Norrie (Bayliss) D Carroll (Li)