Debresay v The Queen

The appellant, Debresay, was convicted by a jury in the Supreme Court of the Northern Territory of the manslaughter of a child who died in 2005. The trial was held in 2016, and the conviction was appealed to the High Court of Australia. The core of the prosecution's case was the hearsay testimony of a child who was four years old at the time of the death, recounting the events that led to the child's abdominal injuries. The appeal centred on whether the jury could reliably exclude a reasonable hypothesis consistent with the appellant's innocence, and whether the verdict was unsafe and unsatisfactory.

The legal issues before the court were whether the jury was able to exclude the reasonable hypothesis that the child's injuries were caused by an accident, and whether the conviction was based on evidence that was reliable enough to support a safe and satisfactory verdict. The court needed to determine if the jury had a reasonable doubt as to the appellant's guilt, given the nature of the evidence and the significant time lapse between the events and the trial.

The court found that the hearsay evidence was unreliable and that the jury could not confidently exclude the reasonable hypothesis of accidental injury. The significant delay in bringing the case to trial, combined with the unreliability of the hearsay evidence, led the court to conclude that the conviction was unsafe and unsatisfactory. The High Court allowed the appeal, quashed the conviction, and entered a judgment of acquittal under the Criminal Procedure Act 2009.