McKellar v Director of Public Prosecutions

McKellar appealed to the District Court against a conviction in the Local Court. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) sought to have the summons filed in the Common Law Division dismissed. The appeal concerned whether the District Court judge erred in failing to conduct an independent assessment of the evidence presented in the Local Court.

The central legal issue before the Court of Appeal was whether the District Court judge, in hearing the appeal from the Local Court, had misconceived their statutory function by accepting the credibility finding of the magistrate without conducting an independent assessment of the evidence. This raised questions about the nature of the supervisory jurisdiction of the District Court when hearing such appeals and the potential for jurisdictional error.

The Court of Appeal held that the District Court judge had indeed erred by failing to make an independent assessment of the evidence. The court clarified that an appeal to the District Court under the Crimes (Appeal and Review) Act 2001 (NSW) requires the District Court judge to undertake a fresh consideration of the evidence, including making their own findings on credibility, rather than simply deferring to the findings of the magistrate. The court found that the District Court judge had misconceived their function under the relevant statute.

The summons filed in the Common Law Division was dismissed, and there were no orders as to costs in the Court of Appeal.