Meyers v The Queen

[1997] HCA 43

HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

BRENNAN CJ, TOOHEY, GAUDRON, GUMMOW AND KIRBY JJ

NOEL JOHN MEYERS v THE QUEEN
Criminal law

(1997) 147 ALR 440

3 September 1997
Criminal law

Criminal law—Murder—Whether conviction unsafe and unsatisfactory—Whether sufficient foundation of fact for a reasonable jury to be satisfied that the relevant acts causing death were done with intent to cause really serious injury—Whether an inference of such intention may be drawn from all the circumstances.

Orders

Order:
Appeal dismissed.

Decision

BRENNAN CJ, TOOHEY, GAUDRON, GUMMOW AND KIRBY JJ.

The appellant and his girlfriend, Ms Tracey McNamara, had been associating for about three years prior to her death. Their relationship was turbulent, especially when both of them were drinking. She lived with her parents but was accustomed to spend about 4 nights every week at the appellant's residence.

On the night she received her fatal injuries, 2 March 1992, she waited for the appellant to return home from work for a barbecue. He was out drinking and was late getting home. She had been drinking too. They quarrelled. The neighbours heard screaming and yelling. They heard thumps or bangs and other sounds of violence. The appellant's brother-in-law received a telephone call from the appellant asking him to come down to the appellant's place. The brother-in-law declined to come. The appellant then called his brother, who arrived with his mother. The police were summoned. When the appellant's brother and mother and the police arrived, Tracey McNamara was lying on the floor on her back. The appellant told them she was "faking it" and that "She is only doing it to get sympathy." The ambulance officers who arrived subsequently saw no obvious signs of external injury other than hair on the floor but they perceived that she was in a serious condition when she failed to respond to light and to painful stimuli. She was admitted to hospital in the early hours of 3 March 1992 and died on 4 March 1992.

In fact she had sustained injuries to various parts of her body and, in particular, to her head. Several clumps of hair had been pulled out, injuries from blunt impacts had been inflicted on virtually every part of her head, she had subdural and subarachnoid haemorrhages and her brain was oedematous. She was bruised on every part of her body. However, no bones were broken and, apart from some abrasions on her elbows, no skin was broken. Nevertheless, the intra-cranial pressure killed her. The pathologist who was called by the prosecution to describe the injuries he had found on post mortem examination agreed that the fatal intra-cranial injury could have been caused by only one of the blows that she had sustained but the injuries to the head external to the cranium would have required at least 2 or 3 blows of at least moderate force.

The live question for the jury and the question canvassed on appeal before the Court of Criminal Appeal of the Supreme Court of Victoria was whether the…