R v Cairney (No 20)

The appeal by the Crown was against the trial judge's ruling that a summary of a DNA table was inadmissible. The appellant, Cairney, was charged with two counts of sexual penetration without consent, and one count of deprivation of liberty, occurring in 2005. The trial judge had ruled that the Crown's proposed evidence in the form of a summary of a DNA table was not admissible. The court was required to decide whether the trial judge was correct in ruling the evidence inadmissible.

The court found that the trial judge had been correct in finding that the summary was not admissible under section 50 of the Evidence Act, as it did not satisfy the requirements of that section. The court found that the evidence could be given by reference to the expert certificate and/or oral evidence. The court found that the crime scene evidence already given sufficiently established the basis for the various matters contained in the expert's report. The court found that the summary did not provide any additional information that was not already contained in the evidence already given.

The appeal was dismissed. The court ordered that the orders of the trial judge be upheld, and that the evidence in the form of the summary of the DNA table be excluded from evidence.