Date of Hearing: 12 February 2020 Date of Order: 12 February 2020 Date of Publication of Reasons: 24 April 2020
B60/2019
ORDER
1.The appeal be allowed.
2.Set aside the order of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Queensland made on 16 April 2019 and, in its place, order that:
(a)the appeal be allowed;
(b)the appellant's convictions for arson and attempted fraud be quashed; and
(c)verdicts of acquittal be entered on each count.
On appeal from the Supreme Court of Queensland
Representation
S J Keim SC with M N B Thomas and D M Wells for the appellant (instructed by Craven Lawyers)
C W Heaton QC with M J Hynes for the respondent (instructed by Director of Public Prosecutions (Qld))
Notice: This copy of the Court's Reasons for Judgment is subject to formal revision prior to publication in the Commonwealth Law Reports.
CATCHWORDS
Coughlan v The Queen
Criminal law – Arson and attempted fraud – Appeal against conviction – Where prosecution case based on circumstantial evidence – Where appellant's house destroyed by explosion and resulting fire – Where appellant present at and seen running away from scene – Where appellant gave version of events to police consistent with innocence – Where appellant made insurance claim on house and contents in connection with fire – Where no apparent financial motive to commit offences – Where expert evidence that explosion caused by build-up of gaseous vapours – Where petrol residues found on appellant's clothes – Where no evidence of petrol residues in house – Whether open to jury to be satisfied of appellant's guilt beyond reasonable doubt – Whether prosecution excluded reasonable possibility that explosion caused by build-up of gas ignited by electrical fire.
Words and phrases – "absence of apparent financial motive", "arson", "attempted fraud", "beyond reasonable doubt", "circumstantial case", "consciousness of guilt", "inference consistent with innocence", "lack of motive", "reasonable possibility", "scientific evidence".
Criminal Code (Qld), ss 408C(1)(c), 459, 461(1)(a).
KIEFEL CJ, BELL, GAGELER, KEANE AND EDELMAN JJ. The appellant was convicted following a trial in the District Court at Brisbane (Judge Clare SC and a jury) of arson[1] and attempted fraud[2]. An appeal to the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Queensland (Morrison JA; Fraser JA and Mullins J agreeing) against the convictions was dismissed. By special leave granted by Bell and Gageler JJ on 18 October 2019[3], the appellant appealed to this Court on a ground which in substance contended that the evidence is incapable of supporting the verdicts. On 12 February 2020, the Court made orders at the conclusion of the hearing, allowing the appeal, and setting aside the order of the Court of Appeal, and in its place ordering that the appeal to that Court be allowed, the convictions be quashed and verdicts of acquittal be entered on each count.…
Grounds of appeal
[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.
[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.
[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.
Consideration
[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.
[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.
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Details
AGLC
Coughlan v The Queen [2020] HCA 15
Case
[2020] HCA 15
Decision Date
CaseChat Overview and Summary
In *Coughlan v The Queen*, the High Court of Australia considered an appeal against convictions for arson and attempted fraud. The prosecution's case was based on circumstantial evidence, including the appellant being seen running from the scene of an explosion and fire that destroyed his house, and his subsequent insurance claim. The appellant maintained a version of events consistent with innocence, and there was no apparent financial motive for the offences. The central question was whether the jury could have been satisfied of the appellant's guilt beyond reasonable doubt, given the circumstantial nature of the evidence and the possibility of an innocent explanation for the explosion.
The legal issues before the High Court were whether the evidence was sufficient to allow a jury to be satisfied of the appellant's guilt beyond reasonable doubt, and specifically, whether the prosecution had excluded the reasonable possibility that the explosion was caused by a build-up of gaseous vapours ignited by an electrical fire, rather than by the appellant's deliberate actions. The court also considered the significance of scientific evidence regarding petrol residues found on the appellant's clothing.
The High Court reasoned that the scientific evidence concerning petrol residues on the appellant's clothing was not sufficiently compelling to exclude a reasonable possibility of an innocent explanation for the explosion. While petrol residues were detected on the appellant's tracksuit pants and shoes, the expert evidence did not establish the quantity of residues, the age of the contact with petrol, or whether such residues could have been present from an innocent source. Furthermore, there was no evidence of petrol residues within the house itself, which was a crucial element for establishing arson by accelerant. The court found that the prosecution had not discharged its burden of proof to exclude all reasonable doubt, particularly the possibility that the explosion was caused by a build-up of gas ignited by an electrical fault.
Consequently, the High Court allowed the appeal, quashed the appellant's convictions for arson and attempted fraud, and entered verdicts of acquittal on each count.
Orders
Orders of the court
1. The appeal be allowed.
2. Set aside the order of the Court of Appeal of the Supreme Court of Queensland made on 16 April 2019 and, in its place, order that:
(a) the appeal be allowed;
(b) the appellant's convictions for arson and attempted fraud be quashed; and
(c) verdicts of acquittal be entered on each count.
Background
Background to the litigation
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Evidence
Evidence Before The Court
A number of witnesses gave evidence of seeing a man running from the scene shortly after the explosion. Two young girls described the man as having a darkish beard and riding off on a motorcycle that did not have a numberplate. It appears that the appellant did not have a beard at the time and that the motorcycle on which he rode away had a numberplate. A neighbour gave evidence of hearing the explosion and going outside and seeing a tall man who may have been dressed in black leather running. She called out to see if the man was okay, but he did not respond. She saw some kids getting into a car and heard one of them complaining, "something about ... he couldn't believe this has happened, and he was still a little bit aggressive about it and got in the car with his friends and drove off".The scientific evidence Ms Maxwell, an employee of the Queensland Police Service Analytical Services Unit, gave evidence of the results of tests carried out on the appellant's clothing. On 19 July 2015 she received a pair of tracksuit pants, a pair of sports shoes, two jumpers and a t-shirt. At the time of receipt, the items were packaged in individual, fire-debris sampling bags. At this time Ms Maxwell was not aware that all five items had originally been stored together with the appellant's motorcycle helmet and his backpack and its contents in a large paper bag. Ms Maxwell tested each item using a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer. This produced a profile from which she was able to determine the presence of any ignitable liquid residues. The tracksuit pants and the shoes contained petrol residues. The two jumpers and the t-shirt contained light to medium aromatic-product-class ignitable liquid residues. In her evidence-in-chief, Ms Maxwell said that the tracksuit pants and the shoes were probably in contact with liquid petrol and the three other items were probably in contact with petrol vapours. An explanation for the light to medium aromatic-product-class ignitable liquid residues on the two jumpers and the t-shirt was that they had been stored in the same bag as the tracksuit pants and the shoes. Ms Maxwell did not give any estimate of the amount of petrol residues found on the tracksuit pants or the shoes. The minimum detection level using a gas chromatograph mass spectrometer is one microlitre in a litre: if a litre of any liquid is broken up into a million parts, Ms Maxwell could detect petrol residues in a single part. She agreed that she had on an earlier occasion made the same point by explaining that the test would yield a positive result for the presence of petrol residues from one drop of petrol in an Olympic-sized swimming pool. Ms Maxwell was unable to offer any opinion on the age of any contact between the tracksuit pants and the shoes with liquid petrol. All she could say was that petrol residues were found. Ms Maxwell was asked if there was a period of time after which she would no longer expect to obtain a positive result for petrol residues. She responded that it depended upon the sample and the length of time before the item was packaged in a fire-debris sampling bag or tin. She observed that there were no published studies on this topic. Ms Maxwell said that a colleague had tested different quantities of petrol on clothing and had been unable to detect half a millilitre of petrol four hours after the clothing had been in contact with the petrol. The tests were undertaken in support of the colleague's successful candidacy for the award of a Master's degree. Ultimately, Ms Maxwell said the period of time that would need to pass before testing would no longer yield a positive result depended on the quantity of petrol residues present and the length of time before the item was packaged correctly. She explained that packaging items in a fire-debris sampling bag or tin preserves residues of accelerants. It is to be recalled that Ms Maxwell did not give an estimate as to the amount of petrol residues found on the tracksuit pants and the shoes.
Decision
Reasons for decision
KIEFEL CJ, BELL, GAGELER, KEANE AND EDELMAN JJ
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Ratio Decidendi
Legal Principle Established
Established by:
KIEFEL CJ, BELL, GAGELER, KEANE AND EDELMAN JJ