Nguyen v R [2022] NSWCCA 126

Court of Criminal Appeal Supreme Court New South Wales Medium Neutral Citation: Nguyen v R [2022] NSWCCA 126 Hearing dates: 25 May 2022 Date of orders: 17 June 2022 Decision date: 17 June 2022 Before: Beech-Jones CJ at CL at [1] R A Hulme J at [70] Adamson J at [71] Decision: (1) The Applicant be granted leave to appeal. (2) The Appeal be dismissed. Catchwords: CRIMINAL LAW – conviction appeal – applicant convicted of one charge of sexual intercourse with the complainant without her consent – applicant met victim following contact on social media – applicant drove her to various locations and then to carport at his apartment block – applicant found to have raped her in car parked in carport – applicant and victim exchanged text messages in the following days – victim then spoke to her ex-boyfriend in Vietnam and approached police – whether verdict was unreasonable and cannot be supported having regard to the evidence – victim told jury that she sent messages to find out whether the person who raped her had any interest in her other than sex – any doubt about victim's credibility or reliability arising from messages was a doubt that the jury's advantage in seeing and hearing her evidence was capable of resolving – observations of trial judge in absence of jury about strength of Crown case – irrelevant to ground of appeal – whether absence of evidence from ex-boyfriend meant verdict unreasonable – ground rejected – leave to appeal granted but appeal dismissed Legislation Cited: Crimes Act 1900 Criminal Appeal Act 1912 Cases Cited: Daaboul v R (2019) 100 NSWLR 682; [2019] NSWCCA 191 M v The Queen (1994) 181 CLR 487; [1994] HCA 63 Mahmood v Western Australia (2008) 232 CLR 397; [2008] HCA 1 Maughan v R [2020] NSWCCA 51 MFA v The Queen (2002) 213 CLR 606; [2002] HCA 53 Neto v R [2020] NSWCCA 128 Pell v The Queen (2020) 268 CLR 123; [2020] HCA 12 Rao v R [2019] NSWCCA 290 Category: Principal judgment Parties: Thien Nguyen (Applicant) Regina (Respondent) Representation: Counsel: D Roff; D Mulligan (Applicant) A Morris (Crown)