R v Dixon (a pseudonym) No.2

[2024] NSWDC 219

District Court

New South Wales

Medium Neutral Citation:

R v Dixon (a pseudonym) No.2 [2024] NSWDC 219

Hearing dates:

13 June 2024

Date of orders:

14 June 2024

Decision date:

14 June 2024

Jurisdiction:

Criminal

Before:

Priestley SC DCJ

Decision:

See [Orders]

Catchwords:

CRIMINAL PROCEDURE — Stay of proceedings — Temporary

Legislation Cited:

Evidence Act 1995

Cases Cited:

R v Dixon (a pseudonym) [2023] NSWDC 368

ELD v R [2005] NSWCCA 446

R v Young [1998] 1 VR 402

R v Storey (1978) 22 ALR 47

Garrett v The Queen [1997] 139 CLR 437

DPP v DL [2018] ACTCA 61

R v Chase (a pseudonym) [2018] NSWCCA 71

R v Medich (No. 38) [2018] NSWSC 322

Category:

Procedural rulings

Parties:

Rex (The Crown)
Dixon (a pseudonym) (The Offender)

Representation:

Boenisch for the Director of the Office of Public Prosecutions
Cusack for The Offender

File Number(s):

2022/148556, 2022/00184667

JUDGMENT

1. By a notice of motion dated 31 May 2024 the accused seeks a stay of the proceedings in which the complainant AD makes five allegations (“the AD trial”) until the trial in which the complainant GM (“the GM trial”) makes one allegation is complete.

2. Initially all 6 counts were on the one indictment. By an earlier order made on 7 September 2023 the allegation made by GM which had been count 1 was severed from the indictment. The reason for that severance was the ruling concerning tendency evidence was that the evidence of counts 2-6 on the indictment was not admissible in the trial of count 1 but that the evidence of count 1 was admissible in the trial of counts 2-6 for the reasons given in that earlier judgment; see R v Dixon (a pseudonym) [2023] NSWDC 368. That judgment determined that the tendency asserted in the Crown’s tendency notice had not been made out but also found there had been established a tendency of the accused as identified at [31] of the earlier judgment, namely as stated there “a man in a sexual relationship with a woman sexually assaults her”; that is the evidence was capable of satisfying a jury that the accused had a tendency to sexually assault a woman with whom he is in a sexual relationship.

3. In the closing paragraph of the earlier ruling it was said the evidence of count 1 (the complaint of GM) was admissible in the trial of counts 2-6 subject to any further application in the event the trial of count 1 occurs first and a not guilty verdict is delivered. For the avoidance of doubt, as there was some suggestion in the submissions otherwise, there was no suggestion in the earlier judgment as to which of the now two trials should proceed first. The ruling as to the admissibility of the evidence of GM in the AD trial concerning the complaints of AD with its proviso just outlined did not carry with it any direction that the AD trial of counts 2 to 6 based on the complaint of AD…