Jones v The Queen; Webster v The Queen

Raymond Frederick Webster and another applicant, Jones, sought special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia from a decision of the New South Wales Court of Criminal Appeal. The applicants had been convicted of conspiracy to bribe, with the prosecution's case relying entirely on intercepted telephone conversations. The Court of Criminal Appeal had dismissed their appeals against conviction.

The central legal issues before the High Court concerned the sufficiency of the evidence to support the convictions, particularly whether inferences of guilt could be properly drawn from the intercepted conversations. This involved questions as to the elements of the conspiracy to bribe offence and whether the trial judge's directions on these elements were adequate. The applicants also argued that the verdicts were unsafe and unsatisfactory, contending that the intercepted conversations only suggested possibilities rather than establishing guilt with any certainty.

The applicants' primary submission was that the intercepted telephone conversations did not permit any confident inference of conspiracy to bribe. They argued that any secrecy or guarded language in the conversations could be explained by reasons other than corrupt intent, such as payments made to prevent illegal actions by a police officer. The Court considered whether payments made in secrecy to a police officer, even if guarded in tone, necessarily indicated bribery, or if alternative explanations were reasonably available.