- Title
- The fraught dichotomy between context and tendency evidence in sexual assault cases - suggestions for reform
- Creator
- Anderson, John
- Relation
- New Directions for Law in Australia: Essays in Contemporary Law Reform p. 153-162
- Publisher Link
- http://dx.doi.org/10.22459/NDLA.09.2017
- Publisher
- Australian National University Press
- Resource Type
- book chapter
- Date
- 2017
- Description
- In this chapter, it will first be argued that the admissibility of relationship or context evidence under the uniform Evidence Acts should be specifically governed by a statutory provision similar to section 34P Evidence Act 1929 (SA), which presumptively makes all evidence of "discreditable conduct" inadmissible and sets a rigorous threshold for the prosecution to persuade the trial judge that the evidence is admissible. This will require a transparent judicial balancing process rather than simply relying on the outmoded notion that directions to the jury will ameliorate the unfair prejudice to the defendant. Second, it will be contended that increased use of expert evidence to explain counter-intuitive behaviours of sexual assault victims, particularly children, is an option in certain cases that will be a more objective way of maintaining the credibility of victims without the need for a detailed and highly prejudicial account of "misconduct" and events leading to the charged offence.
- Subject
- context evidence; tendency evidence; sexual assault cases; Evidence Act; law reform; Australia
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/1395828
- Identifier
- uon:33952
- Identifier
- ISBN:9781760461416
- Language
- eng
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