Regina v Lawrence Holt

[2001] NSWSC 260

CITATION:	Regina v Lawrence Holt [2001] NSWSC 260
FILE NUMBER(S):	SC 70082/2000
HEARING DATE(S):	3/4/01 to 5/4/01
JUDGMENT DATE:	5 April 2001
PARTIES :	Regina Lawrence Holt
JUDGMENT OF:	Sully J

COUNSEL :	P.J.P. Power - Crown P.M. Winch - Accused
SOLICITORS:	I. V. Knight - Crown Solicitor M. Betts - Legal Aid Commission of NSW
LEGISLATION CITED:	Nil
CASES CITED:	Nil
DECISION:	Not guilty

SUPREME COURT OF
NEW SOUTH WALES
CRIMINAL DIVISION

SULLY J

5 April 2001

70082/00 - Regina v Lawrence Holt

JUDGMENT

1   HIS HONOUR:The evidence in the Crown case having closed, learned counsel for the accused has made an application for a directed verdict of acquittal upon the basis that there is, put simply, no prima facie case. I take the relevant law to be comparatively simple and well settled. The Crown is entitled to have that submission assessed upon the basis of the entirety of the evidence now in hand, taking that evidence at every material point at its flood in favour of the Crown.

2   It has then to be asked whether the whole of the evidence taken at its flood in favour of the Crown is such that a jury properly directed as to the law, and judging rationally as to the facts could, as a matter of law, find that the Crown had established beyond reasonable doubt all of the essential ingredients of the crime charged against the accused in the indictment.

3   There are, put very simply but relevantly to the particular facts of the this case, three such basic ingredients.

4   The first of them is the fact of the death of the late Mr Cross. So much is clearly established beyond any doubt at all.

5   The second essential ingredient is the proof beyond reasonable doubt of some act/acts of the accused himself causing that death. That is the central question in this entire trial; and it is the question upon the resolution of which the present application ultimately must stand or fall. I shall return presently to the question.

6   The third essential ingredient of the crime charged is that the accused, if it be found that he did the act/acts bringing about the death, had at the time of the act/acts an intent to kill or to inflict grievous bodily harm. Given the nature of the injuries, I should have thought it beyond the reach of any rational dispute that whoever struck the blows that brought about Mr Cross' death, must have acted with an intent either to kill or to inflict grievous bodily harm.

7   In considering the state of the evidence touching upon the proposition that it is the accused who did the act/acts bringing about the death of the late Mr Cross, it is relevant to say something particular about the circumstances of that death.

8   It seems to me to be clear from the evidence that Mr Cross was killed at a time when he was lying in, and probably when he was asleep in, his sleeping bag, and lying in a spot near the northern end of the Domain Carpark where he was accustomed to live and to sleep.

9   He died as a result of what are described in the relevant medical reports as "catastrophic" head wounds which were of such a kind as to indicate clearly that they were struck with significant force by a blunt instrument of some kind. Found near the body was a bloodied length of iron bar. I think it is clear from the evidence, as it stands, that such was in fact the weapon used to inflict the blows which caused the fatal head wounds to Mr Cross. Fingerprint testing of that bar yielded no identifiable fingerprints.

10   The area in which the killing took place is well illustrated in the video which was admitted as Ex. D on the trial. Put very simply, the area in question is a sandy area, and it is an area which was at the material times a place of regular resort by homeless men, of whom the late Mr Cross was one and the accused was another.

11   Essentially, the evidence available to the Crown and connecting in any way the accused with the striking of the fatal blows, is evidence that there was found a couple of days after the day of the killing some blood spattering on a jacket and boot which seem to me to be clearly established to have been worn by the accused on the day on which, so far as one can judge the date from the available evidence, the actual killing took place.

12   That evidence of blood spattering, looked at from a point of view most favourable to the Crown, seems to me to be capable of establishing beyond reasonable doubt the presence of the accused near the site of the killing and at the time of the killing. That seems to me to be so because the available evidence is to the effect that the blood which spattered the jacket sleeve and boot of the accused must have been liquid blood at the time when it made contact with those two items of clothing.

13   From that proposition it is necessary to advance in the present case with some considerable care. It is very easy to jump from the proposition of proximity, to the proposition that the accused is guilty as charged. Proof of proximity is apt, no doubt, to raise an intelligent and reasonable suspicion about the ultimate guilt of the accused; but it is necessary in such a case as the present one to bear carefully in mind that there is a great and crucial difference between the concept of an intelligent and rational suspicion, and the concept of an intelligent and rational conclusion, reached beyond reasonable doubt, of guilt of murder.

14   Those considerations make it necessary to ask with some care what evidence there might be that is available to the Crown, and which, taken at its highest in the Crown's favour, would provide a path of reasoning, or a process of reasoning, capable of connecting the premise that the accused was present at the scene of the killing, to the inference, which the Crown seeks to have drawn, that the accused actually did the killing.

15   For myself, I do not see that the available evidence, taken at its highest in the Crown's favour, is capable of moving by a process of reasoning from the premise of proximity to the conclusion of guilt beyond reasonable doubt of the crime charged.

16   There are no admissions said to have been made by the accused and said to be capable of providing that path of reasoning. As I have observed, there were no recoverable fingerprints on the iron bar, which I am satisfied was in fact the murder weapon.

17   There is a deal of evidence concerning the presence in the sandy area of which I have earlier spoken of a variety of shoe and boot prints of one kind or another. The view most favourable to the Crown of that evidence would link the accused to some, but by no means to all, of those prints.

18   The result seems to me to be that the Crown case is left in this condition; that the Crown can put the accused in the vicinity of the killing at the time it occurred; but cannot link him at all, by evidence, to the murder weapon, or in any other exclusive way to the scene of the killing, and so to the carrying out of the crime itself.

19   It is worthwhile, I think, to say again that there is plenty of room for suspicion about the accused. It is easy to see why the investigating police considered him to be a person of interest to them in the carrying out of their investigations. It is easy to see why they, and after them the Crown, attached such significance to the blood spattering of which I have earlier spoken.

20   I myself accept that it is significant in the relevant scheme of things. The problem, as it seems to me, is that there is no evidence which, if taken at its highest point in the Crown's favour, is capable of moving the case against the accused past the point of bare proximity to the point of actual connection with the doing of some act/acts causative of the fatal injuries to the late Mr Cross.

21   I think that for the whole of the foregoing reasons the application now made on behalf of the accused is entitled to succeed. I uphold the submission. I return a formal verdict of not guilty, and enter formal judgment of acquittal. The accused is acquitted and discharged, accordingly, in respect of the matter alleged in the indictment.

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Last Modified: 04/10/2001