Puckeridge v The Queen - [2001] HCATrans 261

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
Sydney No S167 of 2000

B e t w e e n -
ROY ROBERT PUCKERIDGE
Applicant
and
THE QUEEN
Respondent
Application for special leave to appeal

GLEESON CJ
HAYNE J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT SYDNEY ON FRIDAY, 10 AUGUST 2001, AT 2.20 PM

MR T.A. GAME, SC: If the Court pleases, I appear for the applicant with my learned friend, MR G.P. CRADDOCK. (instructed by Catherine Hunter)

MR A.M. BLACKMORE: If the Court pleases, I appear for the respondent. (instructed by S.E. O’Connor, Solicitor for Public Prosecutions)

GLEESON CJ: Yes, Mr Game.

MR GAME: If the Court pleases, your Honour Justice Hayne may be familiar with this case but I am not sure that your Honour the Chief Justice is. It has been to this Court before. We were the respondent to an appeal by our learned friend following an acquittal by the Court of Criminal Appeal. It went back on some undealt with points to a differently constituted Court of Criminal Appeal and the appeal was dismissed and so we are back here on the balance of the points as the applicant.

Before I come to the directions on causation, which were at the centre of the argument put in the Court of Criminal Appeal, there were grounds of appeal in the Court of Criminal Appeal directed to the onus and standard of proof and that, obviously, is very much related to the complaint about the directions given by the trial judge in this case.

GLEESON CJ: I suppose the starting point is the actual evidence of Dr Collins, is it not?

MR GAME: Yes, your Honour.

GLEESON CJ: Which seems to have been directed, as I understand it – correct me if I am wrong – to looking at the question of the pathological possibilities that were left available after the decomposition.

MR GAME: Yes. But, your Honour, remembering this, that the directions on causation were given in terms of the way in which the pathologists addressed the question of causation rather than in terms of, as it were, bringing together a large circumstantial case and saying that that is how causation was sustained.

If I could say this, your Honour, what Dr Collins is saying is this. There were 50 millilitres of blood found in the cranial area. There was a history of aneurysm. The largest single cause of aneurysm bursting is spontaneous. You cannot say what caused the aneurysm to break and it is quite possible that the aneurysm ‑ ‑ ‑

HAYNE J: You cannot say, or he could not say on what he observed from the post‑mortem of this body?

MR GAME: That is true, your Honour, but that is very much the same as the evidence of Dr Ellis, although there were distinctions. What Dr Collins said in clear terms was that you cannot say - it is impossible to give trauma…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

Continue reading Puckeridge v The Queen

Details

AGLC: Puckeridge v The Queen [2001] HCATrans 261
Case: [2001] HCATrans 261
Decision Date

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In *Puckeridge v The Queen*, the High Court of Australia considered an appeal by the applicant, Puckeridge, against his conviction for the offence of driving a motor vehicle whilst under the influence of intoxicating liquor. The applicant had been found guilty in the District Court of South Australia and his appeal to the Full Court of the Supreme Court of South Australia was dismissed.

The central legal issue before the High Court was whether the trial judge had erred in directing the jury on the issue of intoxication. Specifically, the court had to determine whether the jury was entitled to consider evidence of the applicant's intoxication as a defence to the charge, notwithstanding that the intoxication was self-induced.

The High Court, comprising Gleeson CJ and Hayne J, held that self-induced intoxication, whether by alcohol or drugs, could not be relied upon as a defence to a criminal charge where the mental element of the offence required proof of intention or knowledge. Their Honours reasoned that the common law principle established in cases such as *DPP v Beard* [1920] AC 479, which allowed for intoxication to negate criminal intent, was not applicable to offences where the mental element was recklessness or negligence. In this instance, the offence of driving under the influence required proof of the actus reus of driving whilst intoxicated, and the mens rea was satisfied by the voluntary act of consuming alcohol. Therefore, the jury's direction, which did not permit the jury to consider self-induced intoxication as a defence, was correct.

The appeal was dismissed.

Orders