The Director of Public Prosecutions for the Australian Capital Territory v AW

The Director of Public Prosecutions for the Australian Capital Territory appealed to the Supreme Court of the Australian Capital Territory against a ruling concerning an offence under section 61 of the *Crimes Act 1900* (ACT). The core of the dispute revolved around whether an accused person must be aware that their conduct is indecent according to contemporary community standards for that conduct to constitute an offence under the section.

The central legal issue before the Court was to determine whether an objective standard of indecency, assessed against community standards, or a subjective awareness by the accused of the indecency of their act, was a necessary element of the offence created by section 61(1) of the *Crimes Act 1900* (ACT).

The Court reasoned that the offence under section 61(1) does not require proof that the accused was subjectively aware that their act was indecent by contemporary standards. Instead, the indecency of the act is to be assessed objectively by reference to those community standards. The Court concluded that the element of the offence is the act itself being indecent, not the accused's awareness of its indecency. Consequently, the appeal was allowed, and the Court ordered that it is not an element of an offence under section 61(1) of the *Crimes Act 1900* (ACT) that the accused is aware that his or her act is indecent according to contemporary standards of morality.