R v Anderson - [2025] QCA 105

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:

R v Anderson [2025] QCA 105

PARTIES:

R
v
ANDERSON, Freedom Mona Maunsell
(appellant)

FILE NO/S:

CA No 72 of 2023
SC No 796 of 2021

DIVISION:

Court of Appeal

PROCEEDING:

Appeal against Conviction

ORIGINATING COURT:

Supreme Court at Brisbane – Date of Conviction: 26 April 2023 (Williams J)

DELIVERED ON:

20 June 2025

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATE:

19 February 2025

JUDGES:

Mullins P and Bond and Flanagan JJA

ORDER:

The appeal is dismissed.

CATCHWORDS:

CRIMINAL LAW – APPEAL AND NEW TRIAL – OBJECTIONS OR POINTS NOT RAISED IN COURT BELOW – IMPROPER ADMISSION OR REJECTION OF EVIDENCE – where the appellant was convicted of murder – where the sole question at trial was whether at the time the appellant stabbed the deceased she intended to cause death or grievous bodily harm – where the appellant appealed her conviction on the basis that the evidence of a covert recording between an undercover police officer and the appellant at a watchhouse ought not to have been received into evidence – where the appellant argued that the quality of the covert recording was so poor that there was a real risk that the jury speculated about the words that were unable to be heard and attributed more weight to the recording of the conversation than it deserved – where counsel had made an informed forensic decision not to object to the recording being tendered at trial – whether the trial judge should have exercised the Christie discretion to exclude the recording – whether a miscarriage of justice could be demonstrated

Nudd v The Queen (2006) 80 ALJR 614; [2006] HCA 9, applied
R v BJM [2022] QSC 307, applied
R v SDT (2022) 11 QR 556; [2022] QCA 159, cited
TKWJ v The Queen (2002) 212 CLR 124; [2002] HCA 46, cited

COUNSEL:

D J Walsh for the appellant
M A Green for the respondent

SOLICITORS:

Guest Lawyers for the appellant
Director of Public Prosecutions (Queensland) for the respondent

MULLINS P: I agree with Bond JA.
BOND JA: Shortly after 7.00 pm on 21 April 2020 the appellant unlawfully killed the deceased, Nicholas Braid, by stabbing him in the chest with a knife. The blow punctured his aorta. He was pronounced dead approximately half an hour later at a hospital.
On 17 April 2023, at the commencement of her jury trial on the charge of murder, the appellant pleaded not guilty to the charge of murder, but guilty to the charge of manslaughter. The prosecution did not accept that plea and the trial proceeded. On 26 April 2023, the appellant was convicted of murder.
The sole question at the trial was whether the Crown had proved beyond reasonable doubt that at the time the appellant stabbed the deceased she intended to cause his death or to cause him grievous bodily harm. The appellant argued at trial that the prosecution had not proved that intention beyond reasonable doubt, in particular…

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 R v Anderson

Details

AGLC: R v Anderson [2025] QCA 105
Case: [2025] QCA 105
Decision Date: 20 June 2025

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In the case of R v Anderson, the appellant, Anderson, appealed against her conviction for the murder of the deceased, contending that a covert recording of a conversation between an undercover police officer and herself at a watchhouse should not have been admitted as evidence. The appeal was heard by the court, which considered whether the trial judge should have exercised the Christie discretion to exclude the recording due to its poor quality and whether this omission resulted in a miscarriage of justice. The appeal hinged on the argument that the recording's quality was so poor that there was a risk the jury might speculate about inaudible words, potentially attributing undue weight to the recording. Counsel for the appellant had opted not to object to the recording's admissibility at trial, a decision which the court found to be rational and informed.

The court evaluated the merits of the argument that the trial judge should have exercised the Christie discretion to exclude the recording due to its poor quality. It considered that the recording, while imperfect, still contained significant probative value that could assist both the prosecution and defence. The court rejected the argument that the recording should be excluded, noting that there was no evidence that the indistinct or inaudible portions could lead the jury to speculate in a way that would unfairly prejudice the appellant. The court concluded that the recording's probative value outweighed any potential prejudice, and that the trial judge's decision not to exclude the recording did not result in a miscarriage of justice.

Given the court's reasoning, the appeal was dismissed. The court found that the appellant's conviction should stand, as the trial was fair, and the recording's admission did not unfairly prejudice the appellant. The court did not find that the trial judge should have exercised the Christie discretion to exclude the recording, as the potential for prejudice did not outweigh the probative value of the evidence. The appeal was therefore dismissed, and the conviction upheld.

Orders

Orders of the court

The appeal is dismissed.

Background

Background to the litigation

Full text does not contain this section.

Evidence

Evidence Before The Court

Full text does not contain this section.

Decision

Reasons for decision

Counsel’s approach was obviously an informed forensic decision based on the judgment that advantage could be taken of those passages in the recording which permitted him to emphasise the extent of the appellant’s intoxication at the time she stabbed the deceased and the extent of disorientation which she must have been suffering at the time. The passages added the weight of the appellant’s own subjective view of how she had been affected by her intoxication to the weight of the observational evidence of the lay witnesses. The decision made by counsel, objectively assessed, was a rational decision. It was one by which the appellant should be bound. The fairness of the trial has not been put in question.Conclusion No miscarriage of justice is demonstrated. The appeal should be dismissed. FLANAGAN JA: I agree with Bond JA.

Ratio Decidendi

Legal Principle Established

Fifth, it follows from the foregoing, that the covert recording contained material which may have been perceived by the jury as assisting the prosecution case, generally in the way for which counsel for the prosecution contended to the jury. But it also contained material which may have been perceived by the jury as assisting the defence case, generally in the way for which counsel for the appellant contended to the jury.Consideration of appeal ground The appeal ground suggests that the covert recording ought not to have been received in evidence because its content was not reliable. But the argument here was not that the evidence was not relevant or probative. That much was accepted. Nor was it that it had been edited in any misleading or inappropriate way. Rather, the argument was that the quality of the recording was so poor due to the indistinct and inaudible portions of it that there was a real risk that the jury speculated about the words that were unable to be heard and attributed more weight to the recording of the conversation than it deserved. Thus, it was said that the trial judge should have exercised the Christie discretion to exclude the recording. Her Honour’s failure so to do was said to have “resulted in an unfair prejudice to the [a]ppellant.” Two separate reasons are sufficient to reject that argument. First, I would not make the evaluative judgment of the recording which the appellant invites. Although it must be acknowledged that there were incomprehensible and inaudible portions of the recording, having listened to the recording, I would take the same approach to the quality of the recording as was taken by Applegarth J in R v BJM [2022] QSC 307. In BJM his Honour was dealing with an application by an accused to have evidence of a recorded conversation at the watchhouse between him and an undercover police officer excluded from his trial for attempted murder. Amongst other things, the applicant argued that the quality of the recording was such as would justify the exercise of the fairness discretion to exclude it. Applegarth J did not accept that the probative value of the recording was outweighed by the potential for unfair prejudice. His Honour observed (footnotes omitted):“This is not a case like R v Bercolli & Ioannou in which a substantial portion of the recording and transcript was inaudible or unintelligible. In that case the Court of Criminal Appeal concluded that what was not intelligible may have included statements by one or both of the appellants demonstrating that they or either of them had not finally agreed to a plan to kill. What remained of the recording was found by the Court to be ‘insufficient to justify the conclusion that the unintelligible portions might safely be ignored as containing nothing to exculpate the appellants or either of them’.As explained by Dowsett J in R v O’Neill, the peculiar relevance of the defective quality of the recording in R v Bercolli & Ioannou was that the conversation was itself an element of the offence. That said, the significance of an admission made in a conversation may be affected by other parts of the conversation. An example was given in O’Neill that a statement by an accused that she had tried to murder her husband would lose its inculpatory effect if other parts of the conversation demonstrated that she was joking or speaking in a figurative sense. The quality of the recordings in O’Neill did not require their rejection on such a basis. Nor does the quality of the recording in this case justify its exclusion in the exercise of the Christie discretion or on the ground that the use of the recording in evidence would be unfair to the applicant.There is no suggestion that the occasional indistinct or inaudible word or words might cause other audible parts of the conversation to lose their inculpatory effect.This is not a case in which there are substantial passages that are indistinct or inaudible so as to encourage the jury to speculate about what was said in those passages to the unfair prejudice of the applicant. If requested, the jury may be told not to speculate about what was said in those occasional parts of the recording that are inaudible or indistinct.”

CITATION:	R v Anderson [2025] QCA 105
PARTIES:	R v ANDERSON, Freedom Mona Maunsell (appellant)
FILE NO/S:	CA No 72 of 2023 SC No 796 of 2021
DIVISION:	Court of Appeal
PROCEEDING:	Appeal against Conviction
ORIGINATING COURT:	Supreme Court at Brisbane – Date of Conviction: 26 April 2023 (Williams J)
DELIVERED ON:	20 June 2025
DELIVERED AT:	Brisbane
HEARING DATE:	19 February 2025
JUDGES:	Mullins P and Bond and Flanagan JJA
ORDER:	The appeal is dismissed.
CATCHWORDS:	CRIMINAL LAW – APPEAL AND NEW TRIAL – OBJECTIONS OR POINTS NOT RAISED IN COURT BELOW – IMPROPER ADMISSION OR REJECTION OF EVIDENCE – where the appellant was convicted of murder – where the sole question at trial was whether at the time the appellant stabbed the deceased she intended to cause death or grievous bodily harm – where the appellant appealed her conviction on the basis that the evidence of a covert recording between an undercover police officer and the appellant at a watchhouse ought not to have been received into evidence – where the appellant argued that the quality of the covert recording was so poor that there was a real risk that the jury speculated about the words that were unable to be heard and attributed more weight to the recording of the conversation than it deserved – where counsel had made an informed forensic decision not to object to the recording being tendered at trial – whether the trial judge should have exercised the Christie discretion to exclude the recording – whether a miscarriage of justice could be demonstrated Nudd v The Queen (2006) 80 ALJR 614; [2006] HCA 9, applied R v BJM [2022] QSC 307, applied R v SDT (2022) 11 QR 556; [2022] QCA 159, cited TKWJ v The Queen (2002) 212 CLR 124; [2002] HCA 46, cited
COUNSEL:	D J Walsh for the appellant M A Green for the respondent
SOLICITORS:	Guest Lawyers for the appellant Director of Public Prosecutions (Queensland) for the respondent