Rodway v The Queen

The applicant, Rodway, was convicted in the Supreme Court of Tasmania of three counts of indecent assault and 63 counts of defilement, contrary to sections 127 and 124(1) of the Criminal Code respectively. The offences were alleged to have occurred between June 1982 and October 1986, involving three complainants. The applicant sought special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia.

The central legal issue before the High Court was whether the applicant could be convicted of the offences charged under the Criminal Code as it stood prior to significant amendments made by the Criminal Code Amendment (Sexual Offences) Act 1987. Specifically, the court had to determine the application of section 136 of the Code, which stipulated that no person could be convicted of crimes under certain sections of Chapter XIV (Crimes Against Morality), including sections 124 and 127, or an attempt to commit them, unless the evidence of the complainant was corroborated in a material particular by other evidence implicating the accused. The amendments to sections 124 and 127 in 1987 altered the definitions of the offences and, crucially, the applicant's indictment was based on the law as it existed before these amendments.

The applicant's submission was that section 136 imposed a blanket prohibition on conviction without corroboration for the charges laid. The court considered the chronology of the proceedings, including the timing of the alleged offences, the committal for trial, and the filing of the indictment, in light of the amendments to the Criminal Code. The applicant argued that the conviction was invalid because the evidence of the complainants was not corroborated as required by the pre-amendment section 136.