R v Bowie (No 1) [2022] NSWSC 1502

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: R v Bowie (No 1) [2022] NSWSC 1502 Hearing dates: 26 September 2022 Date of orders: 26 September 2022 Decision date: 04 November 2022 Jurisdiction: Common Law Before: Yehia J Decision: The evidence of Sergeant Lauren Atwood is inadmissible Catchwords: EVIDENCE ­— Murder trial ­— Missing body — Opinion evidence about the capacity of pigs to devour a human cadaver without leaving a trace —Relevance of the evidence where the experiment conducted involved porcine and kangaroo carcasses ­— Whether an area of specialised knowledge exists — Whether the opinion is based upon specialised knowledge — Whether the reliability of the opinion is relevant to the determination of admissibility of expert evidence Legislation Cited: Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) s 18 Evidence Act 1995 (NSW) ss 55, 79(1) and 137 Evidence Act 2008 (Vic) s 79(1) Cases Cited: Dasreef Pty Ltd v Hawchar (2011) 243 CLR 588; [2011] HCA 21 HG (1999) 197 CLR 414; [1999] HCA 2 Honeysett v The Queen (2014) 253 CLR 122; [2014] HCA 29 IMM v The Queen (2016) 257 CLR 300; [2016] HCA 14 Morgan v The Queen [2011] NSWCCA 257; (2011) 215 A Crim R 33 Murphy v The Queen (1989) 167 CLR 94; [1989] HCA 28 R v McIntyre [2001] NSWSC 311 R v Mohan [1994] 2 SCR 9 R v Tang (2006) 65 NSWLR 681; [2006] NSWCCA 167 R v Trochym [2007] 1 SCR 239 Tuite v The Queen (2015) 49 VR 196; [2015] VSCA 148 Xie v The Queen (2021) 386 ALR 371; [2021] NSWCCA 1 Texts Cited: Andrew Ligertwood and Gary Edmond, Australian Evidence: A Principled Approach to the Common Law and the Uniform Evidence Acts (5th ed, 2010, LexisNexis Butterworths) Evidence (Interim) [1985] ALRC 26 (21 August 1985) Gary Edmond, "The Admissibility of Forensic Science and Medicine Evidence under the Unform Evidence Law" (2014) 38 Criminal Law Journal 136 Gary Edmond and Mehra San Roque, "Honeysett v The Queen: Forensic Science, 'Specialised Knowledge' and the Uniform Evidence Law" (2014) 36 Sydney Law Review 323 Prudence Buckland, "Honeysett v The Queen (2014) 311 ALR 320: Opinion Evidence and Reliability, A Sticking Point" (2014) 35 Adelaide Law Review 449 Category: Procedural rulings Parties: Rex (Crown) John Douglas Bowie (Accused0 Representation: Counsel: A Morris (Crown) W Terracini SC (Accused)