R v DN [2019] NSWDC 492

District Court New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation: R v DN [2019] NSWDC 492 Hearing dates: 29 - 30 April 2019 Date of orders: 01 May 2019 Decision date: 01 May 2019 Jurisdiction: Criminal Before: Grant DCJ Decision: Record of Interview, admissions and journal sought to be admitted are excluded. Catchwords: EVIDENCE — Admissions — Criminal proceedings — Improperly obtained EVIDENCE — Discretions — Exclusion of evidence — Admissions CRIME — Child sex offences — young offender Legislation Cited: Criminal Procedure Act 1986 Category: Procedural and other rulings Parties: Regina (Crown) DN (Accused) Representation: Counsel: M Fox (Crown) P Williams (Accused)

Solicitors: Solicitor for Director of Public Prosecutions (Crown) Jennifer Chalker Lawyer (Accused) File Number(s): 2018/00043130; 2018/00386382 Publication restriction: Any identifiers of accused, victims, witnesses

Judgment 1. In any published version of this judgement (other than to the parties or for use in other courts) a pseudonym 'DN' will be used for the name of the accused, who was at the relevant times was a child. 2. Pseudonyms 'AB' and 'CD' will be used for the victims. 3. Pursuant to s15A Children (Criminal Proceedings) Act 1987, there is to be no publication of any information, picture or other material that identifies or is likely to lead to the identification of any child.

INTRODUCTION 1. Application is made for the exclusion of the record of interview conducted by police with the young person on 30 October 2017. 2. The applicant was 12 years of age at the time. The young person admitted licking AB's vagina on two occasions and asking his sister CD to suck his penis. This admission does not form the basis of any count on the indictment. He said that he did these acts because he was shown by his cousin: question 188 and answer, question 193 and answer. He told his mother it had been happening to him for three years. 3. In relation to AB, he admitted that three months before, from the date of the interview, she was laying down on her bed and he licked her wee wee: See question 215 and answer. At the time he made that admission, he was reading from a note that he had made and was brought to the police station by his mother. At questions 544 to 550, he told the police that his mother got him to write it and that he did not want to write it, but his mother said he had to write it down so she could understand it. 4. To understand the application, it is necessary to outline a chronology of events.