Selby v R

Selby was the appellant who brought an appeal against the respondent, the Crown, to the NSW Court of Criminal Appeal. The dispute centred on the admission of coincidence evidence in the appellant’s trial for armed robbery and intimidation. The Court was required to determine whether the trial judge erred in directing the jury that it could consider evidence of the appellant intimidating the victim on one occasion to infer that he was the person who had demanded money from the same victim on a different occasion.

The court examined whether the trial judge had erred in his direction to the jury concerning the use of coincidence evidence. It considered the relevance of the dissimilarities in the evidence regarding the identity of the person who had committed the two separate acts of intimidation. The court noted that no objection was raised to the jury direction during the trial. The court concluded that, while the evidence of the two incidents was dissimilar, the trial judge did not err in his direction to the jury. The court held that the direction did not constitute an error warranting the setting aside of the conviction and sentence. Therefore, the appeal was dismissed. The court found that the trial judge’s direction did not prejudice the appellant and did not affect the safety of the conviction.