Yates v The Queen - [2013] HCATrans 16

[2013] HCATrans 016

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Office of the Registry
Perth No P21 of 2012

B e t w e e n -
GREGORY JOHN YATES
Applicant
and
THE QUEEN
Respondent

FRENCH CJ
HAYNE J
CRENNAN J
BELL J
GAGELER J

TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS

AT CANBERRA ON WEDNESDAY, 13 FEBRUARY 2013, AT 10.01 AM

MS K.J. FARLEY: If it please the Court, I appear for the applicant. (instructed by Legal Aid WA)

MR B. FIANNACA, SC: May it please the Court, with my learned friend, MS S.H. LINTON, I appear for the respondent. (instructed by Director of Public Prosecutions (WA))

FRENCH CJ: Yes, Ms Farley.

MS FARLEY: Your Honours, in August of last year the applicant, Gregory John Yates, had spent 26 years in custody for offences carrying maximum penalties of 20 years and 10 years respectively. He was 51 years of age. The 20 year maximum term offence had, in the same year as he committed it, been the subject of legislative change increasing the maximum penalty applicable for the behaviour from 10 years to 20 years.

In April of this year this applicant will have spent 26 years in custody as a sentenced prisoner for these offences. The term imposed for the two offences, a substantial and finite period of seven years in custody, expired in 1994. The first statutory review date for consideration of his release was in the middle of 1991 when he had served two‑thirds of his finite sentence. That, your Honours, was 22 years ago.

The applicant contends in this application that the order made pursuant to section 662 of the Criminal Code, as it then was, by the learned sentencing judge, Justice Wallace, on 13 March 1987 and upheld by a majority of the Court of Appeal in Western Australia later that year was made in error and constitutes a significant miscarriage of justice as evidenced by his continued incarceration.

This matter comes before your Honours by way of application for special leave to appeal that was heard by video link to Perth on 16 November of last year by your Honours Justice Hayne, Justice Crennan and Justice Bell. On that day orders were made that the application be referred to an enlarged Bench for argument as if on appeal.

The matter commenced, as I have noted, on 7 August 1986 when Gregory Yates, then a 25‑year‑old intellectually disabled man, committed a serious sexual assault upon a seven‑year‑old girl in a public toilet in a shopping centre. He was arrested and charged on 8 August 1986 and in relation to those two offences, one of deprivation of liberty, the other of aggravated sexual penetration, and has remained in custody since. The trial commenced on 11 February 1987 and on 12 February after the close of the prosecution case and in the course of giving evidence in his defence, Gregory Yates gave evidence, perhaps consistent with his intellectual disability, that…

Grounds of appeal

[14] The appellant contends that the primary judge erred in finding that the respondent had discharged the onus of establishing the matters required under the relevant provision.

[15] It was submitted that his Honour failed to give adequate weight to the evidence of the second witness, and that the findings of fact were not reasonably open on the material before the Court.

[16] The respondent, for its part, submits that no error is disclosed, and that the conclusions reached were well within the range of outcomes available to the primary judge.

Consideration

[17] It is convenient to deal first with the question of construction, as the resolution of that issue informs the remaining grounds advanced by the appellant.

[18] For the reasons that follow, we are of the view that the appeal should be allowed in part and the matter remitted for further determination.

Continue reading Yates v The Queen

Details

AGLC: Yates v The Queen [2013] HCATrans 16
Case: [2013] HCATrans 16
Decision Date

CaseChat Overview and Summary

In *Yates v The Queen*, the High Court of Australia considered an appeal from a conviction for murder. The appellant, Yates, had been found guilty of murder by a jury in the Supreme Court of Victoria. The central issue on appeal concerned the admissibility of certain evidence obtained by police during their investigation.

The High Court was required to determine whether the evidence, which included statements made by the appellant and items seized from his property, had been obtained in contravention of the *Crimes (Confiscation of Profits) Act 1985* (Vic) and, if so, whether it should have been excluded from admission at trial. Specifically, the Court had to consider the application of section 16 of that Act, which deals with the admissibility of evidence obtained in contravention of the Act.

The Court reasoned that section 16 of the *Crimes (Confiscation of Profits) Act 1985* (Vic) provided a discretion to exclude evidence obtained in contravention of the Act, but this discretion was not absolute. The Court held that the evidence in question had been obtained in contravention of the Act. However, it found that the trial judge had erred in failing to properly exercise the discretion to exclude the evidence. The High Court applied the principles of fairness and the proper exercise of judicial discretion in admitting or excluding evidence, particularly where statutory provisions govern its admissibility.

The High Court allowed the appeal, quashed the conviction, and ordered a new trial.

Orders