R v Mackay

The case before the court involved the Crown charging the defendant with unlawfully producing and carrying on the business of trafficking in amphetamine and methylamphetamine. The Crown's entire case relied on admissions made by the defendant during an interview with police at the Maroochydore watch-house on 25 February 2004. The defendant applied for a ruling under section 590AA of the Criminal Code 1899 (Qld) that the evidence of these admissions should be deemed inadmissible, arguing they were induced by a promise to support the defendant's application for bail on other charges. The central legal issue was whether the Crown had disproven, on the balance of probabilities, that such an inducement was made.

The court had to determine whether the Crown had successfully demonstrated that no inducement was made to the defendant to provide the admissions. The defendant claimed that the police promised to support his bail application in exchange for the admissions. The court examined the credibility of the evidence presented by the Crown and weighed whether the promise of bail support constituted an inducement that would render the admissions inadmissible. The court found that the Crown had not disproven the likelihood of an inducement on the balance of probabilities, leading to the conclusion that the statements were inadmissible under section 10 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1894.

Consequently, the court ruled that the evidence of the defendant's interview on 25 February 2004 was inadmissible against the defendant. The court's ruling under section 590AA of the Criminal Code 1899 (Qld) effectively excluded the admissions from being considered in the trial against the defendant. The final orders were that the evidence of the interview was ruled inadmissible by the operation of section 10 of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1894.