R v Johnson (No 4)
[2019] NSWSC 145
•12 February 2019
Supreme Court
New South Wales
Medium Neutral Citation: R v Johnson (No 4) [2019] NSWSC 145 Hearing dates: 6; 7; 11; 12 February 2019 Date of orders: 12 February 2019 Decision date: 12 February 2019 Jurisdiction: Common Law Before: Campbell J Decision: Evidence rejected
Catchwords: Tender of evidence – rejection of tender Category: Procedural and other rulings Parties: Regina (Crown)
Douglas Johnson (Accused)Representation: Counsel:
Solicitors:
G.J. Tabuteau (Crown)
E. Ozen SC (Defence)
Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Crown)
Ross Hill & Associates (Accused)
File Number(s): 2017/195278
Judgment
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Mr Johnson is standing trial for the murder of Mr Morrison. It is admitted that he stabbed Mr Morrison with a knife, or other sharp instrument, on the 27th June 2017 at the Twins Shoe Store on Beamish Street Campsie. What is in issue in the case is the intention of Mr Morrison when he so acted and whether the Crown has excluded the defences of self-defence and extreme provocation, if they arise on the facts, beyond reasonable doubt.
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The Crown have tendered through the officer in charge of the investigation, Detective Senior Constable Trappmann, a photograph of a silver bladed black handled knife in a knife sheath that Detective Senior Constable Trappman purchased at a shop near where Mr Morrison was stabbed.
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The purpose of the tender is to assist in the proof of the proposition that an item depicted in photograph 112 of Exhibit C located on the floor of the Twin Shoe Shop near where Mr Morrison fell is indeed a knife sheath.
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I interpolate that when the photograph was introduced into evidence through the evidence of a police forensics expert I was informed that there was nothing in the material or the evidence that would be led at the trial which would identify what looks like a sheath in photograph 112, with either the accused or the deceased.
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Indeed Mr Ozen asked questions of the forensics officer about whether any inference could be drawn from the shape of the sheath about the nature of the blade that any knife that it housed would have.
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Mr Ozen has objected to the tender of the evidence of this new knife unrelated to the incident, the subject of this trial.
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I am of the view, looking at the photographs, that although the general geometry of the sheath of the knife purchased by the detective is broadly similar to the sheath at photograph 112, and that its dimensions are similar, that it is of a different design and that there is nothing that really in the end from this tender helps me infer beyond what I might infer from what is shown in photograph 112 that that item is indeed as it appears to be a knife sheath, and I reject the tender.
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The bundle of photographs, may be marked for identification and returned to the Crown.
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Decision last updated: 22 February 2019
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