R v WCH

Case [2025] QCA 124

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:

R v WCH [2025] QCA 124

PARTIES:

R
v
WCH
(appellant)

FILE NO/S:

CA No 84 of 2024
DC No 280 of 2023

DIVISION:

Court of Appeal

PROCEEDING:

Appeal against Conviction

ORIGINATING COURT:

District Court at Brisbane – Date of Conviction: 24 April 2024 (Heaton KC DCJ)

DELIVERED ON:

1 July 2025

DELIVERED AT:

Brisbane

HEARING DATE:

21 November 2024

JUDGES:

Bond, Flanagan and Brown JJA

ORDER:

The appeal be dismissed.

CATCHWORDS:

CRIMINAL LAW – APPEAL AND NEW TRIAL – VERDICT UNREASONABLE OR INSUPPORTABLE HAVING REGARD TO EVIDENCE – APPEAL DISMISSED – where the appellant was convicted on five counts of indecent treatment of a child, under 16, under 12, who is a lineal descendant, under care – where the complainant was the appellant’s daughter – where the complainant was aged between three to eight at the time of the alleged offending – where the appellant appealed his convictions on the ground that the verdicts were unreasonable or cannot be supported having regard to the whole of the evidence – where the outcome of the trial was entirely dependent on the jury having accepted the evidence of the complainant – where the appellant argued that the complainant had in the pre-record “reneged” on the evidence given in the police interview – where the appellant argued that the Court of Appeal should find the appeal ground established because it should form the view that the complainant’s evidence was of such poor quality that it was not open for the jury to have been satisfied of the appellant’s guilt – where the Court of Appeal did not need to view the recordings itself to identify the existence, nature and scope of the jury’s advantage in seeing and hearing the witnesses – whether, notwithstanding any inconsistencies in the evidence of the complainant, the jury was entitled to conclude that guilt on all counts had been proved beyond reasonable doubt

Evidence Act 1977 (Qld), s 21AK, s 93A

Pell v The Queen (2020) 268 CLR 123; [2020] HCA 12, cited R v Allen (a pseudonym) [2020] QCA 233, applied
R v Groundwater[2020] QCA 287, cited
R v Thrupp; R v Taiao; R v Walker; R v Daniels[2024] QCA 134, cited
R v ZT (2025) 99 ALJR 676; [2025] HCA 9, cited

COUNSEL:

J Robson for the appellant
S L Dennis for the respondent

SOLICITORS:

Ashkan Tai Lawyers for the appellant
Director of Public Prosecutions (Queensland) for the respondent

  1. BOND JA:  On 24 April 2024 the appellant was convicted after a 3-day jury trial in the District Court on each count of a five-count indictment alleging sexual offending against his daughter on dates unknown in the 5-year period between 31 December 2014 and 26 October 2019.

  2. The complainant daughter was a little over 3 years old at the start of the period identified in the indictment and a little over 8 years old at the end of that period.

  3. For…

Continue reading R v WCH

Sign in free to access the full text

Details
AGLC
R v WCH [2025] QCA 124
Case
[2025] QCA 124
Decision Date

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In the case of R v WCH, the appellant contested his convictions for five counts of indecent treatment of a child under 16, who was his daughter, under the care of the appellant. The complainant was between the ages of three and eight during the alleged offending. The appellant appealed his convictions, arguing that the verdicts were unreasonable or could not be supported by the evidence presented. The crux of the appeal hinged on the reliability and consistency of the complainant's testimony, which was entirely dependent on the jury's acceptance of her account.

The court examined whether, despite any inconsistencies in the complainant's evidence, the jury was justified in concluding that the appellant's guilt was proven beyond reasonable doubt. The complainant's evidence included a recorded interview with the police, and two pre-recorded testimonies. The court referenced R v Allen to highlight the importance of considering the unique factors affecting the reliability of a child's testimony. The court found that the jury was entitled to rely on the complainant's earliest account, as it was likely to be the most accurate, and was also entitled to accept her later affirmations of the truth of her earlier statements.

The Court of Appeal concluded that the appellant had not demonstrated that the jury's verdicts were unreasonable or unsupported by the evidence. The judges independently assessed the evidence and found that the jury was justified in accepting the complainant's testimony and convicting the appellant. The appeal was dismissed, and the convictions were upheld.

Orders

Orders of the court

The appeal be dismissed.

Background

Background to the litigation

Full text does not contain this section.

Evidence

Evidence Before The Court

For reasons which follow, the appeal should be dismissed.Preliminary observations about the evidence of children The outcome of the trial in this case was entirely dependent on the jury having accepted the evidence of the complainant. That evidence was given evidence from the complainant in the form of –(a)her recorded interview with police on 28 October 2019 (when she was 8) tendered pursuant to s 93A of the Evidence Act 1977 (Qld); (b)her pre-recorded evidence on 24 September 2021 (when she was 10) during which she affirmed the truth of what she had told police and upon which she was cross-examined, which was tendered pursuant to s 21AK of the Evidence Act; and (c)her further pre-recorded evidence on 12 April 2024 (when she was 12) when she was further cross-examined, which evidence was also tendered pursuant to s 21AK of the Evidence Act. It was common ground before this Court that these observations made by Sofronoff P in R v Allen (a pseudonym)[1] were appropriate and should inform any assessment of the complainant’s evidence:“While the criminal standard of proof applies just as much to the evidence given by a child as it does to the evidence given by an adult, it is well understood and accepted that the factors taken into account to assess the reliability of the evidence of young children are not the same as those affecting the reliability of the evidence of adults. A child may not view events with the understanding of an adult, may be unable to recall important details that would be prominent in an adult’s recollection and may lack the linguistic ability to recount events or to explain them. Immaturity may lead a child into avoidance techniques when being questioned. Most importantly, as everyone who has any experience of young children knows, although in common with adults, the recollection of a child will be more accurate close in time to the relevant events, a very young child’s memory of events tends to fade very quickly.Section 93A of the Evidence Act is founded upon the sound assumption that the earliest account given by a young child is likely to be the most accurate account. It is this assumption which justifies a prosecutor asking a child, who is giving evidence pursuant to s 21AK at a later trial, whether the account tendered under s 93A is true and it is the assumption which can justify a jury’s acceptance of an affirmative answer. It is why s 2lAA states, as has already been pointed out, that one of the objects of Division 4A of Part 2 of the Act is to preserve, to the extent practicable, the integrity of the evidence of an affected child. The result of the practice that has developed around the use of the provision is that the jury has, potentially, an accurate account of events because it incorporates the contemporaneous choice of language, knowledge, experience, gestures and demeanour of a child witness rather than the account given by a child appearing as a witness, a long time later in the difficult sitting of a criminal trial, when the account may suffer not only from failures of recollection, the stressors inherent in a formal trial, but also from the effects of gained knowledge, experience and maturity.”[1]R v Allen (a pseudonym) [2020] QCA 233 at [21] and [22].

Decision

Reasons for decision

The appellant has not made out his ground of appeal.Conclusion The appeal should be dismissed. FLANAGAN JA: I agree with Bond JA. Having made my own independent assessment of the whole of the evidence, I agree that the jury was entitled to conclude that guilt on all counts had been proved beyond reasonable doubt. BROWN JA: I agree with Bond JA. Having made my own independent assessment of the whole of the evidence, I agree that the jury was entitled to conclude that guilt on all five counts had been proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Ratio Decidendi

Legal Principle Established

The trial judge summed up to the jury in an orthodox way consistent with submissions which had been made to him. No complaint has been advanced to this Court in relation to the directions which his Honour gave. Consideration of the ground of appeal The principles by which this ground of appeal are to be assessed are not in doubt. It was common ground that the leading High Court cases were sufficiently summarised for present purposes in R v Thrupp; R v Taiao; R v Walker; R v Daniels.[3][3]R v Thrupp; R v Taiao; R v Walker; R v Daniels [2024] QCA 134 at [123]. The appellant contends that this Court should find the appeal ground established because, making its own assessment of the sufficiency and quality of the evidence, this Court should form the view that the complainant’s evidence was of such poor quality that it was not open for the jury to have been satisfied of the appellant’s guilt beyond reasonable doubt. I am not persuaded to form that view. As already mentioned, the complainant’s evidence in the 93A statement, if accepted, was capable of proving the case. Plainly the jury did accept that evidence. I do not regard it to be surprising that two years later (which was about a quarter of the complainant’s lifespan later) the complainant’s recollection had become poor. To my mind too much is made of the alleged “reneging” by the complainant in respect of counts 2 and 5 of the appellant’s guilt and the answers in re-examination. The answers on which the appellant relies for that proposition strike me as likely explicable by a combination of the complainant’s diminished recollection and confusion introduced by the way the questioner framed the questions. But any doubt which I might have consequent upon those answers is explicable by the advantages which the jury has over a court which proceeds solely by reference to the record. The jury was entitled to be persuaded simply by accepting the s 93A evidence and not to be troubled by such inroads as might apparently have been made two years later. They were entitled to regard the effect of the inroads as more apparent than real for reasons I have already articulated. Especially is this so given the fact that the preliminary complaint evidence was, as the respondent submitted, largely consistent with the evidence of the complainant so far as it went. That there were minor explicit inconsistencies and that the disclosures were not as explicit as those ultimately elicited by the police in the interview is not something which would compel the conclusion that the jury ought to have had a reasonable doubt concerning the complainant’s evidence. For completeness, I record that the question whether this Court should itself view the recordings of the complainant rather than proceed by reference to the transcripts was addressed during oral argument. Neither party suggested that the Court should do so, and counsel for the respondent submitted that doing so would be to trespass into the jury’s role and would be inconsistent with the High Court’s instruction in Pell v The Queen.[4] I have considered the subsequent discussion of this topic in R v ZT[5] and formed the view that I could identify the existence, nature and scope of the jury’s advantage in seeing and hearing the witnesses without viewing the recordings and have not done so. [4]Pell v The Queen (2020) 268 CLR 123 at 144-145 [36]-[37].[5]R v ZT (2025) 99 ALJR 676 at [16] to [20].