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Regina v Velevski

Regina v Velevski

Case [1999] NSWCCA 96 10 May 1999

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CITATION: Regina v Velevski [1999] NSWCCA 96

FILE NUMBER(S): CCA 60457/97

HEARING DATE(S): 02/12/98; 14/12/98

JUDGMENT DATE:
10 May 1999

PARTIES :

Ljube Velevski (Appellant)
The Crown (Respondent)

JUDGMENT OF: Grove J at 1; James J at 117; Kirby J at 184

LOWER COURT JURISDICTION: Supreme Court

LOWER COURT FILE NUMBER(S) : 70042/95

LOWER COURT JUDICIAL OFFICER: Dunford J

COUNSEL: C.J. Maxwell QC ( Crown)
T.L. Buddin SC with A.C. Haesler (Appellant)

SOLICITORS: S.E. O'Connor (Crown)
Murphy's Lawyers Inc (Appellant)

CATCHWORDS: Criminal Law - murder - deaths of appellant's wife and three children - whether verdicts of guilty of murder unreasonable and not supported by evidence

DECISION: By majority appeal against conviction dismissed

IN THE COURT OF
CRIMINAL APPEAL
60457/97
GROVE J
JAMES J
DAVID KIRBY J
Monday 10 May 1999

REGINA v LJUBE VELEVSKI
JUDGMENT

1 GROVE J: After a trial extending almost two months, the appellant was convicted on four counts of murder. The victims were his wife Snezana, his daughter Zaklina aged six and his twin daughters Daniela and Dijana aged three and a half months. The appeal challenges conviction only, senior counsel for the appellant having indicated that it was not intended to pursue application for leave to appeal against sentence. 2 The appellant and the victims lived in a newly built residence at 10 Castle Court Berkeley, a suburb of Wollongong. As at June 1994 when the deaths occurred they had resided there for about 18 months. The other usual occupants of the house were Petre and Tasa Velevski, the appellant’s parents. It will not hinder clarity and avoid much repetition if various members of the family are referred to on occasions simply by their first names. A central, and the most prominent, issue at trial was whether the Crown had excluded any possibility that Snezana had killed the children and then committed suicide. No one contended, as obviously it could not be, that the three children were other than victims of murder. Throughout the trial the Crown case that the appellant was the perpetrator of the four killings was frequently referred to as murder/murder and the hypothesis that Snezana had killed the children and then herself as murder/suicide. It was useful terminology which I will adopt. At about 4pm on Monday 20 June 1994 Police Constables English and Gray responded to a message to call at the residence 10 Castle Court Berkeley. They found in the house the appellant, a niece of his (Dianna Nadjovski) and persons whom they described as two elderly females and two elderly males. One of the latter was the appellant’s father Petre. The appellant told police that he had not seen his wife and children since the previous night; that his wife had taken the children (into the bedroom) and locked the door. The "privacy” locking device operated when a button on the inside was pressed. The door could be opened from the outside by the insertion of a flat projector into a rectangular slot on the outer door…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

Continue reading Regina v Velevski

Details

AGLC: Regina v Velevski [1999] NSWCCA 96
Case: [1999] NSWCCA 96
Decision Date: 10 May 1999

CaseChat Overview and Summary

The appeal against the conviction of Velevski for the murders of his wife and three children was heard by the High Court of Australia. The appellant was found guilty by a jury of the murder of his wife and three children, an offence that carried a mandatory life sentence. The evidence against the appellant was largely circumstantial, relying on DNA evidence, the presence of ligature marks on the bodies, and the lack of any plausible explanation for the deaths. The appeal focused on whether the verdicts of guilty were unreasonable or not supported by the evidence.

The primary legal issue the court had to address was whether the trial judge had erred in his direction to the jury regarding the evaluation of the circumstantial evidence. The appellant's counsel argued that the trial judge had not properly cautioned the jury about the dangers of convicting on the basis of circumstantial evidence alone. The appellant submitted that the evidence was not sufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis other than guilt, and that the verdicts were therefore unreasonable. The Crown, on the other hand, argued that the evidence was overwhelming and left no reasonable doubt as to the appellant's guilt.

The court held that the trial judge had not erred in his direction to the jury. The court found that the evidence, when considered as a whole, was sufficient to support the jury's verdicts of guilty beyond reasonable doubt. The court emphasised that the jury was entitled to draw inferences from the evidence, and that it was not the role of the court to reassess the weight of the evidence or the credibility of the witnesses. The court rejected the appellant's argument that the evidence was insufficient to exclude every reasonable hypothesis other than guilt, finding that the evidence pointed overwhelmingly to the appellant's guilt. The appeal was therefore dismissed.

Orders