Regina v Lawrence Holt [2001] NSWSC 232

New South Wales Supreme Court

CITATION : Regina v Lawrence Holt [2001] NSWSC 232 FILE NUMBER(S) : SC 70082/2000 HEARING DATE(S) : 26/3/01 and 28/3/01 JUDGMENT DATE : 30 March 2001

PARTIES : Regina Lawrence Holt JUDGMENT OF : Sully J

COUNSEL : P.J.P. Power - Crown P.M. Winch - Accused SOLICITORS : I. V. Knight - Crown Solicitor M. Betts - Legal Aid Commission of NSW Criminal Procedure Act 1986 (NSW) LEGISLATION CITED : Evidence Act 1995 (NSW) Crimes Act 1900 (NSW) Reg v Vinh Le (2000) NSW CCA 49 CASES CITED : The Queen v A.H. (1997) 42 NSWLR 702 O'Leary v The King (1946) 73 CLR 566 DECISION : Sixteen separate rulings given

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES CRIMINAL DIVISION

SULLY J

Friday 30 March 2001

70082/2000 - Regina v Lawrence Holt

JUDGMENT

HIS HONOUR :

Introduction 1 Mr. Lawrence Holt has been presented in this Court for trial upon an indictment charging him with having murdered, on or about 20 June 1999 at Woolloomooloo, one Ronald Cross. The accused pleaded not guilty and he is now standing his trial in the Court, and by Judge alone, the necessary election in that behalf having been made in manner provided by section 16 of the Criminal Procedure Act 1986 (NSW). 2 The Crown case, as opened, is that the accused struck to the head of the deceased a blow, or a number of blows, with a metal bar, thereby inflicting fatal injury upon the deceased. It is clear that some person or persons did so kill the deceased; and there was located near the dead body a bloodied metal bar which appears to have been the murder weapon. 3 The killing occurred in a sandy area at the northern end of the Domain Car Parking Station, which station fronts Sir John Young Crescent in Central Sydney. It was at the time customary for homeless men to bed down at night in various then accessible parts of the station. The accused and the deceased were two such homeless men, and it seems that they slept fairly regularly in, or in the close vicinity of, the sandy area previously mentioned. The Crown contends that the two men were, at least, known to each other. 4 The Crown proposes to lead evidence that footprints of the accused were found when the investigating police first inspected, on 20 June 1999, the scene of the killing; and that there was evidence that some person or persons had swept the surface of those prints with a nearby broken branch. No fingerprints could be recovered from the branch, and there is nothing else about the branch that can be linked to the accused. 5 On 23 June 1999, that is to say some three days after the killing, the police took possession of certain clothing of the accused. On one of his boots were five blood spots. DNA testing suggests that the blood type is consistent with that of the deceased. Other blood spots were found on the accused's jacket; and these, too, showed upon testing that the blood type was consistent with that of the deceased. The nature of some of the blood spotting on the jacket is said by the Crown to be such as to suggest either that the blood became attached to the cloth as an incident of an attack upon the deceased by the accused; or that the blood became so attached as an incident of an attack upon the deceased by some other person or persons at a time when the accused was in very close physical proximity to the scene of the attack. 6 Other particulars were opened by the Crown, but the foregoing summary will suffice to set for present purposes the general cast of the Crown case. 7 Immediately after the conclusion of the Crown opening, learned counsel for the accused made a brief opening statement. The following extract from that statement will suffice for present purposes: "Your Honour, if I might very briefly make these submissions to your Honour in relation to the trial. Your Honour, the defence submission is that the issue, the principal and ultimate issue before the Court is simply whether the Crown can satisfy your Honour beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused was the person who committed the killing. The Crown has taken you your Honour, in a sketch form, the evidence of blood stains and splattering that were found on clothing of the accused, and upon his jacket, and upon his boot. It's my submission on behalf of Mr. Holt that at its highest, the Crown case establishes presence, or proximity either of a basis that Mr. Holt was sleeping nearby as some of the evidence referred to by Mr. Crown was commonly his habit, or because he was nearby in some other way, but it's the defence submission that presence or proximity is as high as the Crown case can go." [transcript at 8(25) - (41)] 8 The foregoing general positions of, respectively, the Crown and the accused having been established, application was made for a series of hearings on the voir dire to the end of testing the admissibility in the Crown case at trial of various pieces of evidence. Voir dire hearings were granted accordingly, and all of them were dealt with by way of documentary evidence. In all, sixteen separate such hearings were conducted. Eleven of those hearings concerned evidence which the Crown seeks to have admitted as tendency evidence; a further four hearings concerned hearsay evidence which the Crown seeks to have admitted as relationship evidence; and one hearing concerned admissions made by the accused to investigating police.