Judge allowing separate lies to be offered as evidence is ruled in error
A Western Australian man will have a new trial on charges of allegedly receiving stolen goods, trailers and dollies and ‘rebirthing’ them, after his conviction was set aside.
WA district court judge Amanda Burrows finds in favour of Darrren Lex Evans over the case in which he was charged with one count of stealing an $85,000 hire trailer, three counts of fraud, 45 counts of receiving solen property and 20 counts of property laundering.
The Crown alleges the value of the transactions and the property, which was stored on Evans’ farm, totalled more than $3.4 million.
The prosecution claims Evans had received:
- 41 semi‑trailers and dollies stolen whilst unattended at various locations throughout the state, including from road train assembly areas at Upper Swan, Northam and Wubin and from roadside parking bays at Bellevue, Newman and Welshpool.
- four shipping containers and their contents which were being transported on the stolen semi‑trailers
- a large cargo of industrial freight, including defence, mining and railway equipment
- 108 bales of wool.
It was alleged Evans had rebirthed the equipment, passing items off as manufactured by his firm – 20 such transactions with 13 separate victims said to have netted him a total of $714,200.
He was charged with fraud for allegedly claiming falsely for theft of trailers, gaining $58,556.18 from Elders Insurance and $87,920 from National Transport Insurance (NTI).
The stolen trailers were worth about $2,352,000 and the goods in transit about $210,000.
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However, defence lawyers successfully argued that the original trial judge should not have allowed a prosecution contention of lying about a number of cheque stubs and payments to Pickles Auctions.
It was a point that emerged in cross-examination rather than being an original part of the prosecution’s case.
Burrows goes on to quote former High Court of Australia judge Michael Kirby commenting on lower courts allowing lies to be admissible in such a way.
“Kirby J observed that many a lengthy trial has ultimately miscarried because of perceived errors in judicial directions about lies,” Burrows states.
“Unfortunately, this is another example of such a case. It has also been recognised that reliance by the prosecution on lies as collateral conduct providing evidence of guilt is ‘fraught with the risk of miscarriage’.”