Regina v Brewer [2000] NSWCCA 488

New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal

CITATION : Regina v Brewer [2000] NSWCCA 488 revised - 23/11/2000 FILE NUMBER(S) : CCA 60719/00 HEARING DATE(S) : 20 November 2000 JUDGMENT DATE : 20 November 2000

PARTIES : Regina Frederick Keith Brewer JUDGMENT OF : Sully J at 1; Whealy J at 29; Howie J at 30

LOWER COURT JURISDICTION : Supreme Court LOWER COURT FILE NUMBER(S) : 70032/99 LOWER COURT JUDICIAL Bell J OFFICER :

COUNSEL : L. P. Gray - Crown D. N. Stewart - Appellant SOLICITORS : Director of Public Prosecutions - Crown Ross Hill & Associates - Appellant

LEGISLATION CITED : Criminal Appeal Act 1912 House v The King (1936) 55 CLR 499 CASES CITED: R v Dorrington (1969) 1 NSWLR 381 Glennon (1992) 173 CLR 592 DECISION : Leave to appeal refused

IN THE COURT OF CRIMINAL APPEAL

60719/00

SULLY J WHEALY J HOWIE J

20 November 2000

REGINA v Frederick Keith BREWER

JUDGMENT

1 SULLY J: This is an application brought to the Court pursuant to s 5F of the Criminal Appeal Act 1912 by Mr Frederick Keith Brewer ("the applicant"). 2 The relevant background facts are as follows: in January 1999 a man named Glen Reay was stabbed to death at a place called Kamarah, a small town located not far from Griffith. The killing, when it came to light, excited some local media comment. In due course, four men, of whom Mr Brewer is one, were arrested and charged with the murder of Mr Reay.

3 All four were subsequently committed for trial on that charge. The committal proceedings, too, attracted a deal of local media interest and comment. 4 Following upon the committal for trial of the four accused persons, one of them pleaded guilty to the charge of murder, and is at present awaiting sentence. 5 Mr Brewer was granted, in circumstances and for reasons which are not at present material, a separate trial. The other two of the four men originally charged pleaded not guilty; were put, accordingly, upon their trial before Bell J of this Court and a jury; and were found guilty as charged upon the verdicts of the jury. That trial, also, attracted a great deal of local media interest and comment. 6 Mr Brewer's trial is set to commence on Monday next before her Honour Bell J and a jury at Griffith. On 24 October last Mr Brewer applied to her Honour to change the venue of the trial from Griffith to Sydney. In a judgment delivered on 27 October last her Honour refused that application. It is that refusal that is the subject of the present application pursuant to s 5F. 7 Four particular grounds have been notified and argued in support of the application for leave. They are as follows: "1. Her Honour erred in allowing an irrelevant or extraneous matter to guide or affect the exercise of her discretion in that she took into consideration the possibility that to direct a change of venue for the reason of the appellant being kept at police cells at Griffith alone might produce the result that criminal trials were no longer held at Griffith. 2. Her Honour erred in the manner in which the observations of the High Court in Glennon 1992 173 CLR 592 were applied to the circumstances of this case. 3. Her Honour erred in that the result is so unreasonable or so plainly unjust that her Honour must have failed to properly exercise that discretion in relation to the first ground of the application for a change of venue.