St Clair v The Queen

Graham Peter St Clair applied to the High Court of Australia for special leave to appeal against a decision of the Court of Criminal Appeal of South Australia. The dispute concerned the admissibility of similar fact evidence and alleged errors in the trial judge's summing up and the Court of Criminal Appeal's consideration of these matters.

The legal issues before the High Court included whether the trial judge erred in principle by assessing the admissibility of similar fact evidence without adequately considering dissimilarities and exculpatory evidence, and whether this failure raised a reasonable possibility of another offender or more than one assailant. Further issues involved alleged errors of law in the trial judge's summing up, specifically concerning the onus of proof in relation to the number of offenders, and whether tainted identification evidence should have been excluded. The applicant also contended that a substantial miscarriage of justice had occurred.

The applicant argued that the trial judge erred by taking the Crown case at its highest when determining admissibility, rather than considering whether the dissimilarities and exculpatory evidence suggested the reasonable possibility of multiple offenders. It was submitted that the Court of Criminal Appeal, despite referencing relevant case law, had erred in its assessment of these principles. The applicant also contended that the summing up contained errors of law regarding the onus of proof, allowing the jury to consider other attacks if they found it improbable that more than one offender was involved. The use of victim statements and the admission of tainted identification evidence were also raised as contributing factors to a miscarriage of justice.