R v Maiolo (No 3)

This case concerned an appeal by the appellant, R v Maiolo, against his conviction for sexual offences. The central dispute revolved around the admissibility of evidence of complaints made by the alleged victim, SZ, to third parties. The appeal was heard by David, Peek, and Stanley JJ of the Supreme Court of South Australia.

The legal issues before the court were primarily concerned with the interpretation and application of section 34M of the *Evidence Act 1929* (SA), which governs the admissibility of complaint evidence in sexual offence cases. Specifically, the court had to determine whether a conversation SZ had with "Lindsay" constituted the "initial complaint" for the purposes of the section, and consequently, whether her subsequent complaint to her mother, TX, could be admitted as "information provided by way of elaboration of the initial complaint." The court also considered whether the admission of a video-recorded interview of SZ by police caused a miscarriage of justice.

The court reasoned that the rule against the reception of previous consistent statements, including complaint evidence, inherently creates an imbalance against the defendant due to its potentially prejudicial effect. While section 34M removed the recency requirement for complaints, it did not abrogate the rules against hearsay or self-bolstering of evidence, and a complaint is not admitted as evidence of the truth of its allegations. The court emphasised that section 34M(3) makes admissible a single "complaint," not a collection of disparate complaints. Applying this principle, the court concluded that the conversation with Lindsay did not qualify as an initial complaint because SZ remembered virtually nothing of it, and it was too disconnected from the later conversation with her mother to be reasonably viewed as one complaint. Therefore, the complaint to TX could not be considered "information provided by way of elaboration" of the Lindsay conversation.

Ultimately, the court rejected the appellant's first contention that the Lindsay conversation constituted the "initial complaint," finding that the complaint to SZ's mother, TX, was permissible as the initial complaint. While the court agreed with the appellant that the complaint to his mother was not "information provided by way of elaboration" of the Lindsay conversation, this was for different reasons than those advanced by the appellant. The court found that the admission of the video-recorded interview did not cause a miscarriage of justice.