R v Stevenson

The case of R v Stevenson involved the respondent, who was charged with indecent assault against a young girl. The alleged incident took place over 44 years prior to the trial. The central dispute centred on the admissibility of certain evidence, specifically the complainant's representations of the alleged incident made to a third party, which were then presented to the court through the testimony of that third party. The matter was heard in the Supreme Court of Victoria.

The primary legal issue before the court was whether the hearsay representations made by the complainant to the third party were admissible under the hearsay exception for unavailable witnesses. The court also had to consider the reliability of the representations, given the significant delay between the alleged incident and the trial. This involved assessing expert opinion on the reliability of the complainant's delayed recollections.

The court held that the representations were inadmissible as they did not meet the threshold of high probability of reliability required for hearsay exceptions. The expert evidence provided did not sufficiently establish that the representations were reliable given the 44-year delay. Consequently, the court ruled that the proposed prosecution evidence was inadmissible at the trial. The court's decision was based on the unreliability of the representations due to the substantial passage of time since the events in question.