Sloane v The Queen

The applicants, Sloane and another, sought special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia against a decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal. The dispute concerned the legal principles applied by the Court of Criminal Appeal in its review of a trial judge's findings of fact.

The primary legal issue before the High Court was whether the Court of Criminal Appeal had erred in law by misinterpreting the trial judge's judgment. Specifically, the applicants argued that the Court of Criminal Appeal wrongly asserted that the trial judge had misunderstood or reversed the onus of proof, and that the applicant had failed to discharge an onus that had been incorrectly assigned. The applicants contended that the Court of Criminal Appeal had misunderstood the trial judge's findings and incorrectly assumed an error of law on the part of the trial judge, when in fact no such error had occurred.

The applicants' submission was that the Court of Criminal Appeal incorrectly stated the legal principles by asserting that, as a matter of law, an applicant must present overt evidence to which a character can be assigned, and that this evidence must then be used to discharge an onus of proof. The applicants argued that this was an erroneous legal principle, particularly in circumstances where a person is otherwise of good character and not shown to have a disposition towards criminal conduct. The High Court granted leave to amend the grounds of appeal.