Miles v The Queen

Miles v The Queen involved the appellant, who was convicted of sexually assaulting his wife. The central issue in this appeal was whether the trial judge's directions to the jury regarding the onus of proof and the use of the complainant's evidence were inadequate and prejudicial, leading to an unsafe and unreliable conviction. The High Court of Australia was tasked with examining the lower court's handling of the directions to the jury and assessing whether these errors necessitated a retrial or merely an appeal.

The legal issues before the court included whether the trial judge correctly applied the Liberato direction concerning the onus of proof and the use of the complainant's evidence. Specifically, the court had to determine if the judge's failure to refer to the relevance of the evidence to the credit of the complainant and the inconsistency between her evidence and that of her husband regarding the terms of the complaint were material errors. Furthermore, the court scrutinised whether the trial judge correctly instructed the jury on the concept of lies and whether it was appropriate to assume the lie was told without first determining its veracity.

The court found that the trial judge did not properly direct the jury on several crucial points, leading to a conviction that was unsafe and unreliable. The judge did not adequately address the relevance of the complainant's evidence to her credibility and failed to consider the inconsistency between her testimony and that of her husband. Additionally, the judge did not correctly instruct the jury on the necessity to first determine whether a lie was told before concluding its veracity, thus wrongly assuming the lie was indeed told. These errors were significant and potentially prejudicial, impacting the jury's ability to make a fair assessment of the evidence. The court concluded that the conviction was unsafe and unreliable, and the acquittal on a different count did not resolve the issues of these errors.

The court allowed the appeal, quashed the conviction, and ordered a retrial to ensure that the jury could properly assess the evidence without the prejudicial errors made during the initial trial.