KBR v Tasmania

The appellant, KBR, sought leave to appeal against his conviction and sentence in the Supreme Court of Tasmania. The dispute concerned the appellant's assertion that the jury's verdict was unreasonable or insupportable, primarily due to contradictions between his witnesses' testimony and that of the six complainants.

The central legal issue before the Full Court of the Supreme Court of Tasmania was whether the existence of competing accounts of events, where the appellant's witnesses contradicted the complainants, necessarily raised a reasonable doubt sufficient to render the jury's verdict unreasonable. The court was also required to consider whether it possessed the power to intervene in the jury's findings in such circumstances.

The court reasoned that the assessment of the credibility and reliability of oral testimony is a matter exclusively for the jury. It held that it had no power to intervene unless, by reason of other matters not apparent from the mere existence of conflicting accounts, the jury must have been left with a reasonable doubt. The court found that the jury was entitled to accept the evidence of all six complainants, and that the evidence of the appellant's guilt was strong, leaving no possibility that an innocent person had been convicted. Consequently, the appeal against conviction was refused. The appeal against sentence on the grounds that it was manifestly excessive was also dismissed.