Towers v The Queen

Helen Margaret Towers was the applicant seeking special leave to appeal to the High Court of Australia against a decision of a lower court. The dispute concerned a direction given by the trial judge to the jury regarding the applicant's failure to give evidence or make a statement denying the Crown's case. The applicant argued that this direction was improper and potentially prejudicial.

The central legal issue before the High Court was whether the trial judge's summing up, which invited the jury to draw inferences adverse to the applicant from her silence, constituted a misdirection. Specifically, the applicant contended that the direction was substantially stronger than that considered in the High Court's decision in *Weissensteiner v The Queen* and that it raised a question under section 407(2) of the *Crimes Act*. The applicant argued that the direction improperly suggested that the applicant's silence, in circumstances where the truth was not easily ascertainable by the Crown but would be expected to be known to the accused, could be considered as evidence of guilt.

The High Court considered the applicant's submissions that the direction given was more forceful than that in *Weissensteiner*, particularly due to a passage stating that where the truth is not easily ascertainable but would be expected to be known to the accused, the lack of an explanation consistent with innocence could be considered. The Court noted that the direction particularised the matters upon which adverse inferences could be drawn from the applicant's failure to give evidence. The applicant maintained that this was akin to the situation in *Weissensteiner*, where the jury was invited to infer guilt from silence. The Court also considered whether the facts called for an explanation from the accused, and if so, whether the absence of such an explanation could be taken into account.