Lloyd v The King

The appeal concerned a criminal conviction where the appellant, Lloyd, challenged the verdict of the trial judge. The dispute centred on the evidence presented in relation to Count 2 of the charges. The appeal was heard by David, Stanley and Kimber JJ of the court.

The primary legal issue before the court was whether the verdict on Count 2 was unreasonable or could not be supported having regard to the evidence. This ground of appeal was largely founded on an attack on the credibility and reliability of the complainant's evidence, particularly in light of CCTV footage. The appellant contended that the CCTV footage was inconsistent with the complainant's account of the incident, specifically her claim that she looked down to see her hand being placed on the appellant's groin.

The court considered the CCTV footage and found it to be equivocal, not sufficiently clear to contradict the complainant's evidence. The angle, distance, and resolution of the footage meant that an inconsistency between the complainant's testimony and the objective evidence could not be established. Furthermore, the court addressed a secondary submission regarding a minor inconsistency in the complainant's evidence about the extent to which she turned her head. The court concluded that this peripheral inconsistency, given the complainant's age and the time elapsed since the event, was not of sufficient weight to have caused the trial judge to entertain a reasonable doubt about the reliability of her account of the critical events.

Permission to appeal was granted, but the appeal itself was dismissed.