KG v Firth

In the case of KG v Firth, the appellant, a 13-year-old boy, was acquitted by the Youth Justice Court of a charge of indecent assault. The prosecution appealed this decision to the Supreme Court, which quashed the acquittal. The appellant then appealed to the intermediate court, which allowed the appeal, reinstating the acquittal. The prosecution appealed to the Full Court of the Supreme Court, which allowed the appeal and quashed the decision of the intermediate court, reinstating the Supreme Court's decision to quash the acquittal. The appellant now appeals to the High Court. The central issue was whether the appellant knew that his conduct was seriously wrong in the moral sense. This question is one of fact, and the prosecution bears the burden of proving it. The intermediate court found that the trial judge’s finding of reasonable doubt that the appellant knew his conduct was seriously wrong in the moral sense was not so unreasonable as to make the conclusion irrational and arbitrary. The court held that the trial judge was not required to accept the expert’s opinion on the ultimate issue and that questions put by defence counsel could not be taken to amount to the appellant’s instructions or form a basis for an inference that the appellant knew that his conduct was seriously wrong in the moral sense. The Full Court of the Supreme Court found that the intermediate court had erred in its assessment of the significance of the appellant’s knowledge of the victim’s absence of consent to the ultimate issue. The Full Court held that the trial judge had misapprehended the level of the complainant’s resistance and that the only inference reasonably open was that the appellant knew the complainant was not consenting to the acts. The Full Court also found that the intermediate court had erred in finding that the Youth Justice Court was acting arbitrarily or irrationally in entertaining a doubt about the appellant’s knowledge of the wrongfulness of his conduct. The High Court allowed the appeal and quashed the decision of the intermediate court, reinstating the decision of the Full Court of the Supreme Court. The appeal was allowed, and the decision of the Youth Justice Court was quashed, reinstating the decision of the Supreme Court.