R v FQ

The case of R v FQ came before the court as an appeal against conviction and sentence. The respondent had been convicted of various offences of sexual penetration against a child. The appeal raised questions about the admissibility of certain evidence and the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the conviction.

The legal issues in the appeal centred on the trial judge’s exercise of discretion in admitting three written statements from interviews with the child complainant under sections 93A and 98 of the Evidence Act. The defence argued that the absence of a recording of the police interviews rendered the statements unreliable, and that they should have been excluded under section 98 of the Evidence Act. The appeal also questioned whether the interests of justice required the exclusion of the statements, and if the jury was open to convict on the evidence presented.

The court examined the statutory provisions and found that the trial judge correctly exercised their discretion in admitting the statements. The court noted that while the absence of a recording was a factor, it did not automatically render the statements inadmissible. The court also held that the threshold for exclusion under section 98 of the Evidence Act was higher than simply being of questionable reliability; it required the statements to be of demonstrable unreliability. Additionally, the court found that the discrepancies in the complainant’s account and the lack of supporting evidence did not undermine the jury’s ability to convict, as there were some corroborating elements in the evidence.

The appeal was dismissed, and the conviction and sentence were upheld.