R v Weaver (No 9)

The case of R v Weaver (No 9) involved the appellant, Weaver, who was convicted of assault occasioning bodily harm. The trial judge admitted evidence of a prior representation made by the victim, which Weaver sought to exclude on the basis that it was hearsay. The High Court of Australia heard the appeal from the Queensland Court of Appeal. The central issue before the court was whether the evidence of the victim's prior representation could be admitted under an exception to the hearsay rule. Specifically, the court needed to determine if the evidence could be considered a contemporaneous representation of the victim’s health, feelings, sensations, intention, knowledge or state of mind.

The court examined the nature of the representation and whether it was made contemporaneously with the events it described. It concluded that the representation was not contemporaneous because it was made some time after the incident. The court noted that for the exception to apply, the representation must be closely connected in time to the events it describes. The court held that the representation in question did not meet this criterion, as there was a significant lapse of time between the assault and the making of the representation. The High Court found that the evidence was inadmissible hearsay and, therefore, should not have been admitted at trial. Consequently, the conviction was quashed and a new trial ordered.

The High Court's decision in Weaver (No 9) reinforces the strict application of the hearsay rule and the importance of the contemporaneous nature of the representation for it to be admissible under the specified exception. The court’s ruling highlights the need for careful consideration of the temporal proximity between the events and any representation about the person’s health, feelings, sensations, intention, knowledge, or state of mind in such cases.