R v Warwick (No.11) [2018] NSWSC 521

Supreme Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: R v Warwick (No.11) [2018] NSWSC 521 Hearing dates: 23 April 2018 Date of orders: 23 April 2018 Decision date: 30 April 2018 Jurisdiction: Common Law - Criminal Before: Garling J Decision: (1) Order that Orders 1 and 2 of the Notice of Motion filed on 11 April 2018 be dismissed. (2) Stand over the balance of the Motion to 10am on 30 April 2018. Catchwords: CRIMINAL PROCEDURE – interlocutory orders –motion for reformulation of Crown electronic brief in specified form – where order previously made requiring Crown to prepare an electronic brief –consideration of mandatory pre-trial disclosure obligations – Criminal Procedure Act 1986 ss 141(1)(a) and 142 – motion dismissed in part Legislation Cited: Criminal Procedure Act 1986 Cases Cited: R v Warwick (No.6) [2018] NSWSC 234 Texts Cited: Not Applicable Category: Procedural and other rulings Parties: The Crown Leonard John Warwick (Accused) Representation: Counsel: K McKay / G Christofi (Crown) A R Conolly / E Ramsay (Accused)

Solicitors: Director of Public Prosecutions (Crown) A R Conolly & Co (Accused) File Number(s): 2015/222068 Publication restriction: Not to be published until further order of the Court. Non publication order lifted on 14 February 2020.

Judgment 1. In R v Warwick (No.6) [2018] NSWSC 234, a judgment delivered on 1 March 2018, I made orders requiring the Crown to serve on the Accused two sets of: "an electronic Court book setting out in the order of the document headed 'Order of witnesses for trial', and by reference to each named witness, the statements and other records which are to be adduced in evidence at the trial." 1. That order was made in substance to address the gravamen of the Accused's submissions that the nature of the piecemeal service of the Police Brief and the Crown Brief, particularly exacerbated by service of documents in the period between October 2017 and March 2018, made it very hard for the Accused to fully understand the evidence which the Crown proposed to adduce at the trial by reference to particular witnesses and events. 2. As well, as I noted in R v Warwick (No.6), there could be considerable difficulties with respect to the storage in Court of multiple copies of a paper version of the Crown Brief. 3. I concluded that it would be in the interests of justice that there be available for the purposes of the trial an electronic database which captured the document which had been provided in paper form entitled "Order of Witnesses for Trial", together with each of the statements and other documents to which those witnesses would refer in the order in which that list presented. 4. The Crown complied with that order and has provided to the Court, and to the Accused, an electronic database accessible through a software program entitled "Adobe Acrobat Pro DC". It will be convenient to call this the "Crown E-Brief".