Hinds v The Queen

This matter came before the High Court of Australia on an application for special leave to appeal. The applicant, Mr Hinds, sought to appeal his conviction for the murder of his wife. The Crown's case against Mr Hinds was entirely circumstantial.

The legal issues before the Court concerned the weight and admissibility of certain circumstantial evidence relied upon by the Crown. Specifically, the Court was asked to consider whether the Crown had improperly relied on the disappearance of the matrimonial bed and the applicant's explanation for its sale. The applicant argued that the Crown's disproof of his statement regarding the method of selling the bed, through evidence from the radio station operator, concerned a peripheral matter and was not a substantial strand in the circumstantial case.

The Court was informed that the point regarding the radio programme evidence had not been taken in the Court of Appeal, nor had the evidence itself been objected to at trial. The applicant's counsel sought to rely on the principle established in *Piddington's case* concerning the disproof of peripheral matters. The Crown's case was built on several pieces of circumstantial evidence, including the wife's disappearance, the sale of the bed, and the presence of blood spots on the bedroom wall. The applicant had reported his wife missing approximately a week after her disappearance, and blood samples were taken from the bedroom over a year later.