R v Willis

[2023] QSC 190

SUPREME COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:

R v Willis [2023] QSC 190

PARTIES:

R

v

WILLIS, Dylan Lee

(defendant)

FILENO/S:

SC No 15 of 2023

DIVISION:

Trial Division

PROCEEDING:

Trial

ORIGINATINGCOURT:

Supreme Court at Cairns

DELIVEREDON:

Delivered ex tempore on 9 August 2023

DELIVEREDAT:

Cairns

HEARINGDATE:

8 and 9 August 2023

JUDGE:

Henry J

ORDER:

Directed verdict of acquittal by the jury.

CATCHWORDS:

CRIMINAL LAW – EVIDENCE – MATTERS RELATING

COUNSEL:

TO PROOF – PRIMA FACIE CASE OR CASE TO

ANSWER – where the defendant is charged with supplying a dangerous drug to himself – where the prosecution ran a circumstantial case – where the defence submits there is no case to answer after the closing of the prosecution case and no evidence about the defendant’s work or habitual habits was adduced – whether there is evidence sufficient to rationally sustain a guilty inference

Drugs Misuse Act 1986 (Qld)

R v AP [2003] QCA 445
R v MDP [2023] QCA 134

R v Stewart; ex parte Attorney-General [1989] 1 Qd R 590
R v Lovett [2020] QCA 86

C Peters for the prosecution B Bilic for the defendant

Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions (Queensland) for the prosecution

Osborne Butler Lawyers for the defendant

SOLICITORS:

1. HENRY J: The defendant is charged that on the 6^th day of June 2021, at Bungalow in the State of Queensland, he unlawfully supplied the dangerous drug 3,4- Methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) to himself. The prosecution case having closed, the defence submit there is no case to answer.

1. The evidence in the case was very brief, essentially involving the evidence of the arresting officer, the evidence of a friend who dwelt, for an unspecified time, at the same residence as the defendant and a variety of evidentiary admissions. At the outset of the trial, the accused pleaded guilty to a charge of possession of a dangerous drug, but not guilty to the charge which is the subject of the no case to answer submission.

1. On 6 June 2021 the police attended at the Bungalow Mail Centre. Bungalow is a suburb of Cairns. A postal package was opened. There was found the quantity of MDMA, the subject of the supply charge. The parcel was directed to a female person, one Lilly Ryan, at 89 Woodlock Drive, Edmonton, 4869, Queensland.

1. No evidence has been adduced in the trial as to who Lilly Ryan is, whether she is a real person or whether she is ever known to have had any association with that address. The police, having seized the package, procured a search warrant and, two days later, executed it at 89 Woodlock Drive. No one was home.

1. In a bedroom of that home, they found three other mail packages addressed in a like way as the package seized by police. Each had been opened and was empty. Each bore handwritten code of a like kind to handwritten code also found on the seized package.

1. Property in the bedroom in question apparently included some identifying information of…