R v Mackrell

Case [2025] QCA 144

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:

R v Mackrell [2025] QCA 144

PARTIES:

R
v
MACKRELL, Desmond Gregory
(appellant)

FILE NO/S:

CA No 65 of 2025
DC No 470 of 2025

DIVISION:

Court of Appeal

PROCEEDING:

Appeal against Conviction

ORIGINATING COURT:

District Court at Brisbane – Date of Conviction: 31 March 2025 (Farr SC DCJ)

DELIVERED ON:

5 August 2025

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATE:

17 July 2025

JUDGES:

Mullins P, Bradley JA and Morrison AJA

ORDERS:

1.   Appeal dismissed.

2.   A warrant issue for the apprehension of the appellant to lie in the Registry for five business days.

CATCHWORDS:

CRIMINAL LAW – APPEAL AND NEW TRIAL – VERDICT UNREASONABLE OR INSUPPORTABLE HAVING REGARD TO EVIDENCE – APPEAL DISMISSED – where the appellant was convicted of one count of repeated sexual conduct with a child and two counts of carnal knowledge against the order of nature – where the appellant was acquitted of a further count of carnal knowledge against the order of nature and one count of indecent treatment of a boy under the age of seventeen years – where the appellant was a high school Principal and the complainant was a student – where the appellant submits that the evidence was unreliable in such a way that the jury should have doubted that guilt had been proven – whether the jury’s finding of guilt was unreasonable or insupportable having regard to the evidence

Dansie v The Queen (2022) 274 CLR 651; [2022] HCA 25, applied
M v The Queen (1994) 181 CLR 487; [1994] HCA 63, applied
Pell v The Queen (2020) 268 CLR 123; [2020] HCA 12, applied
R v ZT (2025) 99 ALJR 676; [2025] HCA 9, applied

COUNSEL:

T A Ryan KC, with G F Perry, for the appellant
C N Marco for the respondent

SOLICITORS:

Robertson O’Gorman Solicitors for the appellant
Director of Public Prosecutions (Queensland) for the respondent

  1. MULLINS P:  I have undertaken my own independent assessment of the evidence at the trial.  I agree with the reasons of Morrison AJA and with the orders his Honour proposes.

  2. BRADLEY JA:  I have assessed the sufficiency and quality of the whole of the evidence, in the context in which the appeal was brought, and reviewed and assessed the features of that evidence that support the appellant’s case and the Crown’s case on appeal as advanced in their respective written and oral submissions.

  3. I agree with the analysis of the evidence by Morrison AJA and with his Honour’s conclusion.  For the reasons expressed by his Honour, I agree that, on the whole of the evidence, it was not unreasonable for the jury to have decided there was no reasonable doubt as to the proof of the appellant’s guilt.

  4. It follows that I concur with his Honour’s conclusion that the appeal should be dismissed.

  5. MORRISON AJA:  On 31 March 2025, the appellant was convicted after a trial on three counts, namely:

    (a)Count 1 – repeated sexual conduct with a…

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Details
AGLC
R v Mackrell [2025] QCA 144
Case
[2025] QCA 144
Decision Date

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In the case of R v Mackrell, the appellant, a former high school Principal, appealed against his convictions for one count of repeated sexual conduct with a child and two counts of carnal knowledge against the order of nature, while being acquitted of one count of carnal knowledge and one count of indecent treatment of a boy under the age of seventeen. The Court of Appeal was tasked with determining whether the verdict was unreasonable or insupportable given the evidence presented.

The primary legal issue was whether the jury's finding of guilt was unreasonable or insupportable in light of the evidence. The appellant argued that the complainant's evidence was unreliable due to certain inconsistencies and implausibilities, suggesting the jury should have doubted the guilt of the appellant. The court had to assess whether these issues with the complainant's testimony were so significant that they undermined the reliability of the evidence to the extent that the jury's verdict could be considered unreasonable.

The court examined the complainant's evidence and found that, despite some inconsistencies, the overall credibility of the complainant was not in question. The court concluded that the jury was entitled to believe the complainant's account, as he consistently maintained the truthfulness of his memories and provided detailed descriptions of events that were not contradicted by the appellant's case. The court held that the inconsistencies did not reach the level of compelling the conclusion that the events recalled had not actually happened or that any true events were recalled in a distorted fashion. The appeal was therefore dismissed, and the court ordered that a warrant for the apprehension of the appellant lie in the Registry for five business days.

Orders

Orders of the court

1. Appeal dismissed.

2. A warrant issue for the apprehension of the appellant to lie in the Registry for five business days.

Background

Background to the litigation

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Evidence

Evidence Before The Court

Fourthly, it was said that there were features of the complainant’s account which raised doubts about the inherent plausibility of his evidence. These included:(a)acts of sexual conduct occurred in the appellant’s office, a location where the risk of discovery would have been exceedingly high;(b)the complainant asserted that he knew the layout of the school like “the back of [his] hand” but was unable to recall the location of the toilet block in which he said he was raped or whether the administration area of the college had been reconstructed in the middle of his three years at the college;(c)the complainant asserted in his witness statement that he observed the appellant and Brother X walking around the grounds of the school without underwear and with visible erections; however, the complainant testified at trial that, whilst he “stood by” what he said in his statement about that, he had no recollection of those things.The complainant’s evidence Early in his evidence the complainant explained that his main teacher at the school was Brother X, and the appellant was the Principal. He described a number of matters in terms that were not contradicted in cross-examination, such as:(a)the physical features of Brother X (five foot tall, bald, from Burma or Thailand, sweated profusely and stunk);(b)the physical features of the Principal (six feet tall, very well groomed, big hands);(c)the Principal’s nature (calm, precise, no mistakes, occasional anger);(d)the events on his first day in school when he got into a fight and was taken to the Principal’s office;(e)the location and general features of the Principal’s office, including layout and furniture; from memory he had done a drawing of the layout (Exhibit 1);(f)that in order to get to the Principal’s office one did not have to cross through the office in which the office secretaries worked;(g)that when the strap was administered by the Principal it was always to the palm of a hand; and(h)that he was sent to the Principal’s office on occasions for disciplinary reasons whether he deserved it or not. In cross-examination there were matters in the complainant’s evidence which were not contradicted by the appellant’s case. For example:(a)that the appellant never taught the complainant;(b)that the Principal’s office remained in the one place during the time the complainant was there; it was put that the office moved in Grade 8, but the complainant answered, “I can’t recall that”,[6] and the matter was left there;(c)the complainant said that on his first day he was sent to the Principal’s office; the appellant’s case accepted that to be so;[7] and(d)that the appellant applied physical punishment to the complainant in Grades 9 and 10; it was put to the complainant that there was no punishment in Grade 8, which the complainant rejected;[8] then it was put that “from grade 9 onwards … he may have disciplined you from time to time with a strap”, which the complainant accepted, adding “And a cane”;[9] then it was put that such discipline “was only from grade 9 onwards”, which the complainant rejected, saying “the beatings increased in grade 9”.[10][6]TS 1-46 line 46 – 1-47 line 8.[7]TS 1-50 lines 1 – 7.[8]TS 1-52 line 40.[9]TS 1-58 line 48.[10]TS 1-59 lines 8 – 25.Individual counts

Decision

Reasons for decision

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Ratio Decidendi

Legal Principle Established

Senior Constable Berry gave evidence. He took over handling the complaint from Officer Heenan. He said the complainant’s statement was signed on 19 October 2022.Consideration The central attack on the convictions was on what was said to be “concessions” by the complainant. In my view, however, when the evidence is properly understood the “concessions” do not carry the case very far. The first is that the complainant did not have a memory of the events of the sexual abuse by the appellant about which he gave evidence, until after he had a nightmare or a dream about the event in question. The complainant repeatedly said he had actual memories, even if they were referred to as “shards”. The jury heard him reject the proposition that he had no real memories, or that they were the product of dreams or nightmares, or that they were relocated from Brother X to the appellant. As has been said above, the complainant’s attempts to explain the significance of the dreams and nightmares were in the context of his maintaining that they added to memories that already existed. The dreams and nightmares added clarity or volume, or depth. Properly understood, the complainant’s evidence did not accept that the dreams and nightmares established reality that was not there otherwise. Specifically, the evidence does not go so far as to show that the complainant adopted the line (wrongly attributed to him) that the dreams and nightmares created or added reality. In similar vein, the complainant said he always knew that two Brothers were involved, and that the appellant was one of them. That the dreams involved the appellant’s face is not something the jury would have necessarily found worrying, in the sense of reliability. The complainant had nightmares for a long time, and it was only when the memories surfaced after his confession to his wife in 2018 or 2019 that they added the clarity or weight referred to. That answers the second and third “concession”. The jury may have accepted that the complainant’s first memories of the abuse concerned only Brother X, but that does not mean they had to conclude that the memories concerning the appellant were false ones, or that memories of Brother X were transposed wrongly to the appellant. In my view, the evidence does not reach the point of compelling the conclusion that events recalled had not actually happened, or that any true events were recalled in a distorted fashion. The appellant’s submission is that the risk of this was “exceedingly high” and the jury ought to have thought so. I respectfully disagree. My own analysis of the evidence does not lead me to assess the risk that way. The appeal proceeds on a concession that the complainant’s credibility is not in issue. In other words, it is accepted that he was a credible witness. The jury heard his denials of the propositions, and his reassertions that he knew what had happened. They also had the opportunity to see and hear him when he explained or attempted to explain the significance of the dreams and nightmares. It was open to them to conclude that when the complainant said he had actual memories, not created or overlain by the dreams of nightmares, that he was telling the truth.