R v D

In this case, the appellant was convicted of various counts of indecent dealing with a child under the age of 10 and exposing the child to indecent material. The trial was held in the Supreme Court of New South Wales, and the appeal against the conviction was heard by the Court of Criminal Appeal. The appellant was convicted based on substantial evidence, including video tape-recorded interviews, although neither of the complainants gave evidence at the trial. The appellant's counsel made no attempt to exclude evidence relating to uncharged acts or to seek specific directions regarding its use.

The legal issues before the court included whether the trial judge should have distinguished between the use of evidence of uncharged acts to determine the truth of the confessions with respect to the acts charged, as opposed to the likelihood of the appellant committing the offences because of a propensity to do so. Another issue was whether the failure by the police to record all conversations with the appellant rendered the confessional evidence inadmissible due to the risk of inducements calculated to cause an untrue confession. Additionally, the court considered whether the appellant's failure to object to improper police questioning at an earlier stage vitiated the trial judge's adverse finding of credit and consequent admission of the confessional evidence.

The Court of Criminal Appeal held that the trial judge was not required to make a distinction between the uses of the evidence of uncharged acts, and that the evidence was properly admitted for the jury's consideration. The court found that the failure to record conversations did not render the confessional evidence inadmissible, as there was no evidence of inducements being made during the unrecorded conversations. Furthermore, the court determined that the appellant's failure to object to the police questioning did not vitiate the trial judge's finding of credit. The court concluded that there was no misdirection or non-direction by the trial judge, and the verdict was not rendered unsafe by the conduct of the trial.

Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed, and the convictions were upheld. The court found no grounds for setting aside the convictions or ordering a new trial.