Barbor v The Queen

This matter concerns an application for special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia by the proposed appellant, Barbor, against the respondent, The Queen. The dispute centres on the admissibility of identification evidence presented at trial and the subsequent judgment of the Court of Criminal Appeal.

The legal issues before the High Court involved whether the trial judge erred in exercising his discretion to admit identification evidence, particularly in light of alleged non-compliance with the *Alexander* rules designed to guard against mistaken identification. A further issue was whether the Court of Criminal Appeal’s judgment, in effect, excluded police officers from the requirements of the *Alexander* rules, thereby diminishing the safeguards and potentially exacerbating the dangers of such evidence.

The appellant argued that the *Alexander* rules were not complied with and that the trial judge's discretion was improperly exercised, influenced by the fact that the identifiers were police officers engaged in surveillance. The submission was that this ruling created an unjustified distinction between police officers and ordinary citizens, implying a superior reliability of police identification without adequate justification. The appellant suggested alternative steps that could have been taken to bolster the identification evidence, such as photographic identification or a line-up.