Cong Phuong Van v The Queen
[2017] VSCA 149
•22 June 2017
SUPREME COURT OF VICTORIA
COURT OF APPEAL
S APCR 2016 0121
| CONG PHUONG VAN | Applicant |
| v | |
| THE QUEEN | Respondent |
---
| JUDGES: | ASHLEY and PRIEST JJA and CROUCHER AJA |
| WHERE HELD: | MELBOURNE |
| DATE OF HEARING: | 1 May 2017 |
| DATE OF JUDGMENT: | 22 June 2017 |
| MEDIUM NEUTRAL CITATION: | [2017] VSCA 149 |
| JUDGMENT APPEALED FROM: | DPP v Van (Unreported, County Court of Victoria, Judge Patrick, 2 May 2016) |
---
CRIMINAL LAW – Application for leave to appeal – Conviction – Trafficking in a commercial quantity of cocaine – Whether guilty verdict unsafe and unsatisfactory – Whether open to jury to exclude hypothesis that applicant party to trafficking in drug other than cocaine – Leave refused.
---
| APPEARANCES: | Counsel | Solicitors |
For the Applicant | Mr D Grace QC | Valos Black & Associates |
| For the Respondent | Mr G J C Silbert QC | Mr J Cain, Solicitor for Public Prosecutions |
ASHLEY JA
PRIEST JA:
On 7 March 2016, Cong Phuong Van was found guilty of trafficking in a drug of dependence, namely, cocaine, in not less than the applicable commercial quantity, in the period between 10 and 13 November 2014. On 2 May 2016, he was sentenced to four years and nine months’ imprisonment. The judge fixed a non-parole period of three years and three months. Now, Van seeks leave to appeal against conviction; and, if leave be granted, that his appeal be allowed and his conviction quashed.
Ground of appeal
The applicant relies upon the following ground:
1.The jury’s verdict is unsafe and unsatisfactory in that, upon the whole of the evidence, it was not open to the jury, properly directed, to be satisfied that the appellant was guilty.
Particulars
It was not open to the jury to conclude, upon the whole of the evidence, that the Applicant was complicit in sourcing and in the purchase of Cocaine (as the prosecution alleged), as opposed to some other drug such as, for example, Cannabis.
Circumstances generally described
The circumstances of this matter are largely not contentious. The question which this Court must decide is whether the jury must, not might, have found the applicant not guilty upon those circumstances.
In 2014, a man named Matthew Murphy (‘Murphy’) was sourcing cocaine in Colombia and trafficking it wholesale in Australia, apparently on a commission basis. He was also trafficking in other drugs, including heroin and cannabis.
On the morning of 13 November 2014, just before 10am, Quang Xuan Do (‘Do’) drove to Murphy’s residence at 168 Rupert Street, West Footscray. Unknown, as it appears, to either Do or Murphy, the premises were under surveillance in the course of a task force investigation into the importation and distribution of cocaine in Australia. Murphy was one of the targets of the investigation.
Do met Murphy at the front gate of the premises. Do was wearing or carrying a brown leather shoulder satchel. They walked, together, out of sight.
Some few minutes later, Murphy and Do came back into view. Do went to his car with the satchel and returned carrying a plastic bag, which he handed to Murphy. Do then walked back to his car, and waved at a man, subsequently revealed to be the applicant. The latter had arrived by car some little time before Do’s arrival. He had been observed to walk along the street, passing by Murphy’s home, before Do’s arrival. When Do waved to him, the applicant was standing about 50 metres away. The two of them entered their vehicles and drove off in convoy. They did not get very far before they were arrested. Their vehicles were searched.
The satchel which Do had taken into and brought out of Murphy’s residence was found to contain a bag of cocaine, weighing 399.3 grams. Testing showed that, at 72.7 per cent purity, there was 290.2 grams of pure cocaine. A commercial quantity of the pure drug is 250 grams.[1] A mobile phone belonging to Do was also seized.
[1]See Part 3 of Schedule Eleven of the Drugs, Poisons and Controlled Substances Act 1981.
Two mobile phones were found in the applicant’s vehicle, and $10,000 in cash. An explanation which the applicant later gave for the provenance of the $10,000 apparently satisfied the authorities, because forfeiture of the money was not pursued.
Police also searched Murphy’s residence that morning. Relevantly, they found $60,000 cash and relatively small quantities of methylamphetamine, cocaine, cannabis heads and heroin.
It was the Crown case that an agreement had been entered into between the applicant and Do that not less than a commercial quantity of cocaine be purchased from Murphy; or otherwise that the applicant was complicit in such a purchase by assisting or encouraging Do to make it. The trafficking alleged against the applicant was possession for sale.
The applicant was interviewed by police on the day of his arrest; and again in February 2015. On the first occasion, he proffered an innocent explanation for being in Rupert Street on 13 November 2014. The gist of it was that he and Do had met up by chance at a wedding not long before, having been acquainted at an earlier time. They had arranged to meet up for coffee, and his attendance at Rupert Street on the morning of 13 November was in respect of a plan to have coffee together that morning. The applicant developed this explanation at some length. At trial, his counsel, in substance, abandoned it.
By the time of the second record of interview, a considerable number of text messages passing between the applicant and Do over a period of days up to and including 13 November, to the extent that they were in the Vietnamese language, had been translated. On their face, they appeared to show a contemplated business transaction involving the two men. The applicant gave an explanation which turned on an intended lobster export business to Vietnam. This explanation was also disowned by the applicant’s counsel at trial.
As on the occasion of the first interview, the applicant repeatedly stated his innocence of any offending to do with drug trafficking.
At trial, the prosecution did not rely upon the applicant’s several accounts as evidence of incriminating conduct with respect to the charged offence, constituted by lies. Rather, reliance was placed upon what were said to be untruths as going to the applicant’s credibility.
It is not difficult to see that the applicant’s credibility was in issue. His exculpatory accounts included not only the coffee and lobster business stories, but also, inter alia — (1) his statements that he had no idea what was meant by certain terms used by him and Do in their texts which, as the Crown alleged, were, in the particular case, code for trafficking cocaine; and (2) his statement that he found the mobile phone, by which he communicated with Do, new, in a box, in a street.
Of course, if assertions of those kinds were considered by the jury not to be credible, it did not follow that the converse was, in each instance, the case. But they were relevant to what the jury made of his protestations of innocence.
The Crown did not call either Murphy or Do at the applicant’s trial. Rather, evidence was given as to — (1) the activities of Do, Murphy and the applicant on the morning of 13 November 2014; (2) the bag of cocaine found in Do’s physical possession; (3) the quantity of cocaine, mixed and pure, in the bag; (4) the $60,000 cash found in Murphy’s possession; (5) a recorded telephone conversation between Do and Murphy on the night of 12 November 2014; and (6) the large number of text messages passing between the applicant and Do in the period 10 to 13 November 2014. Those messages were found on the mobile phone seized from Do and on one of the two mobile phones found in the applicant’s vehicle on 13 November. They included texts on the evening of 12 November and the morning of 13 November, by which Do told the applicant where to be on the morning of 13 November, and at what time; and in which there was toing and froing about the quantity of an intended purchase.
Applicant’s contentions at trial
At trial, senior counsel for the applicant contended that the jury could not exclude, as a reasonable possibility, that the applicant had disclosed in his text messages with Do an attempt to source some drug or form of contraband other than cocaine.
To that end, he adduced or relied upon evidence that:
●police seized at Murphy’s premises drugs other than cocaine, including heroin and cannabis;
●Murphy was known to have trafficked or supplied substantial quantities of cannabis over some years;
●the applicant was — in contradistinction to Murphy and Do — unknown to investigators until his arrest on 13 November 2014;
● investigators had no intelligence on him or his activities;
●references to ‘motorbikes’ as code for ‘kilograms’ (this was a word used in messaging between the applicant and Do, between a Colombian cocaine supplier and Murphy, and between Do and Murphy) was common to the supply of many drugs and not unique to cocaine;
●experience dictated that, although there might be an occasion for receiving a supply of drugs ‘on tick’, the supply of drugs was typically not such as to lend itself to supply on credit;
●there was no evidence that Do was extending the applicant credit;
●there was no evidence that the applicant, during the period of the investigation, had possessed cocaine;
●there was evidence that, throughout the period 2010 to 2014, a pound (approximately half a kilogram) of cannabis was being sold for $3,000 and a kilogram for $5,000;
●cannabis ‘head’ — found in Murphy’s premises — sold for more;
●text messages originating from Do’s phone but not adduced by the prosecution disclosed that, over the same period of the applicant’s alleged offending with Do (12 and 13 November 2014), Do was negotiating with men identified as ‘Anh’ and ‘Tuang’, as well as with Murphy. His negotiations with Anh and Tuang, however, seemingly did not relate to cocaine, but rather to some other drug or drugs and possibly to cannabis;
●there was no forensic evidence linking the applicant to the $60,000 cash found in Murphy’s possession or to the bag in which it was contained;
●the word ‘bomb’ — used by persons including the applicant — was not, in context, a reference to cocaine; and
●the translations undertaken by the witness and interpreter Phu Nguyen were, in key respects, shown to be the subject of some doubt and ambiguity.
Applicant’s counsel made a ‘no case’ submission at the conclusion of the Crown case. He relied upon these matters:
●there was no evidence from which a jury could infer the identity of the drug or substance the subject of any agreement between the applicant and Do and, by extension, no evidence on which a jury, acting reasonably, could exclude that it was a drug other than cocaine;
●no text messages exchanged between the applicant and Do disclosed the identity of the drug the subject of any agreement between them;
●there was no evidence that the applicant had provided Do with any money for the purchase of any drug;
●the exchanges between Do and Murphy and the events on the morning of 13 November 2014 could not — in particular, in the light of the concessions made by the witness Nguyen — be said to relate to any agreement reached between the applicant and Do;
●the exchanges between Do and Anh or Abinh emboldened the preceding submission;
●there was no evidence linking the applicant to cocaine, and the $10,000 found in his possession was, on the evidence, insufficient to purchase a half kilogram of cocaine (or a quarter kilogram, for that matter);
●the applicant’s interviews with police were not relied upon as implied admissions and, thus, in so far as he might have lied, his answers did not advance the prosecution case; and
●in summary, there was no or insufficient evidence from which the jury could at law infer the nature or content of any agreement between the applicant and Do.
The further course of the trial
The judge rejected the no case submission. The rejection of that submission is distinct from the question now before this Court — that is, whether the jury verdict was unsafe and unsatisfactory.
The applicant did not give evidence and called no witnesses. The jury found the applicant guilty after deliberating for a little more than three hours.
Submissions in this Court
Submissions for the applicant
In this Court, applicant’s counsel called in aid the circumstances relied upon by counsel at trial, in which we include the matters which trial counsel highlighted in the no case submission.
Orally, counsel submitted that there was no evidence of the applicant’s complicity in the sourcing or supply of cocaine by contrast with some other drug. He cited two authorities, which he submitted had some correspondence with the present case. They were Suri v Director of Public Prosecutions (Cth)[2] and R v Moran and Mokbel.[3]
[2][2014] VSCA 260 (‘Suri’).
[3][1999] 2 VR 87 (‘Moran and Mokbel’).
Counsel described as ‘very thin’ the evidence which was led in an attempt to prove an agreement between the applicant and Do to purchase cocaine. He submitted that the $60,000 found in Murphy’s possession could not be forensically linked to the applicant, and that there was no other evidence to show that it emanated from the applicant. If any money had been paid by Do to Murphy, it did not emanate from the applicant.
Counsel referred also to what he submitted were equivocal references in text messaging between the applicant and Do. The messages, he submitted, apart from not referring to a particular drug or an amount of money, revealed no agreement between the two men to purchase a quantity of drug (whatever that drug might be).
Submissions for the Crown
It was submitted for the Crown in writing that:
●The arranged purchase of cocaine by Do from Murphy was uncontradicted.
●The applicant was involved in trafficking a drug of dependence with Do, as conceded by trial counsel for the applicant. The text messages between the applicant and Do between 10 and 13 November 2014 demonstrated that the applicant was in business with Do.
●Specifically, the text messages of 12 and 13 November 2014 established the agreement between the applicant and Do to purchase ‘a half’, being half a kilogram of cocaine. The applicant did not want to purchase a kilogram for himself as he was not confident he would be able to dispose of the drug and therefore owe money on the purchase. The agreement was that the purchase be for half a kilogram.
●It was implausible that Do would mislead the applicant regarding the nature of the drug of dependence in light of the agreement they had reached to obtain half a kilogram. Cocaine is significantly more expensive than cannabis. The effect of such a deception would be that Do would be out of pocket. The deception would also have created some difficulties for the applicant who had a market he was trying to capture. He would have been unable to do so if he had blindly involved himself in the purchase of the wrong drug. Further, the applicant specifically disclosed his concern about selling a kilogram as opposed to half a kilogram. The applicant could only have had such a concern if he was aware of the nature of the drug.
●The text messages and surveillance footage revealed that Murphy sourced cocaine from Colombia and agreed to sell cocaine to Do. Murphy believed he would be selling one kilogram to Do for $130,000. The applicant was unable to dispose of one kilogram of cocaine and asked Do if he could have half a kilogram so as not to find himself in debt. Do advised Murphy the purchase would only be for half a kilogram. Do arranged for the applicant to meet him at Murphy’s house where the transaction was to take place. After the transaction was complete, the parties were arrested.
●The only reasonable conclusion that could be drawn from the evidence was that the applicant had an agreement with Do to purchase a commercial quantity of cocaine which was then to be sold to others.
●The fact that Murphy was in possession of other drugs at the time of arrest and had a history of supplying other drugs was irrelevant.
●The informant gave evidence that a kilogram of cocaine sold for between $180,000 and $220,000, and that the price of $130,000 for a kilogram was cheap. The low price in this case was explicable as the supplier was only one person removed from the source, therefore the price was considered to be a wholesale price.
●The text messages and telephone calls did not use the word ‘cocaine’. The exchanges were either coded, cryptic or in shorthand. The word ‘motorbike’ had a particular meaning in the exchanges between Do and Murphy — that is, it referred to a kilogram of cocaine. The informant gave evidence that ‘motorbike’ is not unique to the sale and purchase of cocaine. The fact that the term was not specific to cocaine was irrelevant in the circumstances of this case, where the evidence of the transaction between Do and Murphy was uncontradicted.
●The word ‘bomb’ is not unique to cocaine. The informant was not asked what he understood the word to refer to in the context in which it was used. The jury were left to decide for themselves what ‘I do not want to hold on to the bomb, bro’, meant. When considered with all of the evidence, the only reasonable conclusion was that it was a reference to cocaine.
●The translator, Phu Nguyen, was cross-examined regarding his translation of the messages between the applicant and Do. The cross-examination did not cast doubt on the substance of the translation, but rather, the nuances of the translation in a few instances.
●The cross-examination of Phu Nguyen did not cast doubt or ambiguity upon the balance of the translations. Further, the cross-examination did not affect the only reasonable conclusion that could be drawn from the messages, that is, the applicant had an agreement with Do to purchase a commercial quantity of cocaine which was then to be sold to others.
●The hypothesis that the applicant was dealing in some other drug or contraband was not so strong and so inherently plausible that any jury acting reasonably were bound to acquit.
Orally, counsel for the Crown submitted that Do’s waving to the applicant and their departure in convoy implied the applicant’s assent to the cocaine purchase. The transaction between Murphy and Do had gone to plan and would be completed as between Do and the applicant somewhere else.
Counsel submitted also that the cases cited by the applicant relied on their facts, and those facts materially differed from the facts of the instant case.
Analysis
In our opinion, the applicant’s case is without merit, and leave to appeal against conviction should be refused. The following matters are in point.
First, the text messages passing between the applicant and Do in the days leading up to and culminating on 13 November 2014, as we understand them, were well capable of being understood by the jury as referring to an intended purchase of, in the end, a half kilogram of cocaine. Although the price quoted for a kilogram of cocaine, $130,000, was cheap, it was the amount which the supplier in Colombia had told Murphy was to be charged in the particular transaction.
Second, the $60,000 found in Murphy’s possession correlated closely, though not exactly, with the stated price for a kilogram of cocaine reduced to a half kilogram purchase. It could safely be inferred that that money had been paid to Murphy by Do in exchange for the cocaine found in the latter’s satchel.
Third, it was the applicant, for reasons he explained to Do, who decided that the purchase should be of a half kilogram of cocaine, rather than a kilogram.
Fourth, whilst there was evidence that a supplier of cocaine was unlikely to give credit, it did not follow that, as between the applicant and Do, the latter should pay Murphy for the drug in the first instance. This was compatible with an agreement between the two men to purchase the drug and then resell it at a profit.
Fifth, the applicant was on hand close by the scene of the transaction between Do and Murphy on 13 November. Do had given the applicant reason why, on the one hand, he should be close by, but on the other hand, should not meet Murphy.
Sixth, Do’s observed wave to the applicant, followed by the two of them driving off in convoy, enabled the drawing of an inference to the criminal standard that a transaction, to which the two of them were party, had been completed to the point that the intended drug had been purchased.
Seventh, the idea that Do, having arranged for the applicant to attend close by Murphy’s premises, had then purchased cocaine for some other person, and had not made a previously intended purchase of, say, cannabis for the applicant was wildly improbable having regard to Do’s gesture to the applicant when the transaction with Murphy had been completed.
Eighth, the defence case was conducted on the basis that the applicant had not been party to any agreement to purchase cocaine. No issue arose as to intention to traffick in not less than a commercial quantity of the drug.
Ninth, in the circumstances which we have described, one could safely put to one side the circumstances that Murphy had been known to traffick in cannabis, that investigators had not known of the applicant’s existence before the morning of 13 November 2014, and that some of the code words used by the applicant and Do in their text messaging could have applied to drugs other than cocaine.
Tenth, likewise, it was an interesting forensic point, but no more, that there was no forensic evidence linking the applicant to the cash found in Murphy’s possession.
Eleventh, contrary to the submissions for the applicant, it was well open to the jury to conclude that the cross-examination of the translator had not revealed errors or ambiguities which touched the substance of the translated messaging. It is also a conclusion which we have reached on independent consideration of the evidence.
Twelfth, we consider that Suri[4] does not assist the applicant. It was a case decided on its facts. The applicant was charged with conspiring to import a commercial quantity of a border controlled precursor, namely pseudoephedrine. It was established that the applicant had arranged for a contact in India to supply a substance to be forwarded from India to Melbourne in a shipping container. There was no direct evidence identifying the substance which was to be imported, or the applicant’s intention or belief. The prosecution relied upon inference to establish those matters. The applicant had travelled to India, not long before a container was shipped to Melbourne. The prosecution case was that the purpose of the trip was for the applicant to meet his Indian contact so as to facilitate the importation.
[4][2014] VSCA 260.
The applicant did not contend that he was not a party to an agreement to import a prohibited substance of some kind, or that the quantity involved was not a commercial quantity. His case was that the prosecution had failed to establish that he knew that the substance being imported was a border controlled precursor, and that the prosecution had, in any event, failed to prove that he knew or believed that the border controlled precursor would be used to manufacture a controlled drug.
The evidence respecting those matters was largely dependent upon a recorded conversation between two of the other co-conspirators, which had taken place in May 2008. When addressing the jury, applicant’s trial counsel
argued that the jury could not infer that a border controlled precursor was the object of the conspiracy to import, as opposed to, for example, cocaine or ecstasy. The conversation between [two of the alleged co-conspirators] was inconsistent with a precursor being discussed because the values of the substance discussed did not match the values for [the particular precursor alleged by the Crown to be the subject of the conspiracy].[5]
[5]Ibid [21].
Further, counsel had contended, there were other things in the conversation between two of the alleged co-conspirators which did not add up.
As the Court observed, having noted that a number of cases had been drawn to its attention:
These cases did not, however, advance any new or novel principle of law. The question in this case, as it was in those cases, is whether as a matter of law the jury were entitled, on all the evidence, to exclude all hypotheses consistent with innocence.[6]
[6]Ibid [22].
Having regard to all the circumstances, the Court determined that question adversely to the applicant.
Thirteenth, Moran and Mokbel[7] was one of the cases referred to in Suri.[8] It was said by the Court in Suri to have raised no new or novel principle of law, but to involve determination of whether the jury, as a matter of law, were entitled, on all the evidence, to exclude all hypotheses consistent with innocence.
[7][1999] 2 VR 87.
[8][2014] VSCA 260 [22].
In Moran and Mokbel,[9] the two accused men were convicted on a count of conspiring to traffick in a drug of dependence, methylamphetamine. The only evidence of the conspiracy was contained in a tape recorded conversation between the two men. There, Moran had agreed to supply a quantity of pseudoephedrine to Mokbel. Methylamphetamine is manufactured from pseudoephedrine. The accused gave no evidence at the trial. On appeal, they argued that the Crown had not excluded a hypothesis consistent with innocence. This Court granted leave to appeal, and allowed the appeals. It was concluded that the jury could not have excluded as a reasonable hypothesis that Moran had agreed to supply Mokbel with pseudoephedrine, but had not agreed upon the manufacture of methylamphetamine.
[9][1999] 2 VR 87.
Batt JA observed that:
Although a considerable part of the argument was devoted to the inferences that were said to be open or not open to the jury, to my mind the task is rather, once the words spoken by the applicants are ascertained so far as that is possible, to construe and interpret those words in order to determine whether the applicants, intending to do so, made an agreement which was the agreement contended for by the Crown. The interpretation is to be made in the context of the whole conversation and, in particular, of facts revealed by that conversation. In performing that task, the making of implications, if warranted, is permissible, but the drawing of inferences is not, for, the Crown case was not a circumstantial one, as it was in R v Sienczuk (1981) 5 A Crim R 243, R v McCaul and Palmer [1983] 2 VR 419, R v Trudgeon (1988) 39 A Crim R 252 and Gebert, Haley and Black v R (1992) 60 SASR 110, since, by hypothesis, the whole text of the putative oral agreement was available and no conduct could be adduced: Merchant Service Guild of Australia v Newcastle and Hunter River Steamship Co Ltd [No 1] (1913) 16 CLR 591 at 624, cited in R v Rigby (1956) 100 CLR 146 at 151; and Rose v Hvric (1963) 108 CLR 353 at 358, which make clear the difference between implication and inference. In short the question is, What did the applicants mean by their words? More precisely, in view of the onus and standard of proof, it is whether it was open to the jury to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that their words bore no other meaning than that the applicants were agreeing together to manufacture methylamphetamine.[10]
[10]Ibid 88 [4].
Kenny JA noted that:
The Crown’s case was that Moran and Mokbel had conspired together to traffic in methylamphetamine by agreeing together that the drug would be manufactured by one or other, alternatively both of them. This agreement was said to be constituted by the conversation at Moran’s flat on 6 April 1993. No evidence was adduced at trial of any overt acts in furtherance of the alleged agreement. It was not, of course, necessary to prove any such acts to establish the commission of the alleged offence.[11]
[11]Ibid 91-2 [16].
Her Honour concluded that:
Having listened carefully to the conversation recorded on audio-tape, I am, in the end, unable to say that the jury, acting reasonably, could have excluded as a reasonable hypothesis that, at the end of the conversation on 6 April, Moran had agreed to supply Mokbel with pseudoephedrine but had not agreed upon the manufacture of methylamphetamine as alleged by the Crown in the case put to the jury. The evidence left open, as a reasonable hypothesis, that the only agreement concluded between the applicants was an agreement for the supply of pseudoephedrine by Moran with the expectation on Moran’s part that Mokbel would use the pseudoephedrine to make methylamphetamine.[12]
And:
Counsel for the applicants submitted that the present case was truly one of conflicting hypotheses, citing R v Sienczuk (1981) 5 A Crim R 243, R v McCaul and Palmer [1983] 2 VR 419 and Gebert, Haley & Black v R (1992) 60 SASR 110. Perhaps, the case would be more accurately described as calling for an evaluation of conflicting possible constructions of the taped conversation, for as Batt JA indicates, the jury and this Court were called upon to interpret that conversation.[13]
[12]Ibid 95 [25].
[13]Ibid 95 [27].
It is clear that Moran and Mokbel turned upon the meaning to be given to what the accused men had said in a recorded conversation. The agreement relied upon by the Crown was to be found there, and only there. That was not this case. Mokbel and Moran does not assist the applicant.
Order
As we have said already, we would refuse the applicant leave to appeal against conviction.
CROUCHER AJA:
I have had the benefit of considering the judgment of Ashley and Priest JJA in draft. I agree, for the reasons their Honours give, that the application for leave to appeal against conviction should be refused. I wish to add only the following.
The submissions made by counsel for the applicant — both at trial and in this Court — amounted to arguably good reasons why a jury might have failed to be satisfied, beyond reasonable doubt, that the applicant was a party to trafficking in the commercial quantity of cocaine found in Mr Do’s possession.
But none of those points, either alone or in combination, compelled the jury to have a doubt about the applicant’s guilt of the offence charged. Instead, as their Honours have shown, on the evidence, it was open to the jury to exclude all hypotheses consistent with innocence, including the suggestion that the applicant may have been involved in trafficking some other drug, such as cannabis, and to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt of his guilt as charged.
----
0
1
0