Bruce James Spittle v The Queen - [2017] NZSC 105

NOTE: PUBLICATION OF NAME, ADDRESS, OCCUPATION OR IDENTIFYING PARTICULARS OF COMPLAINANT PROHIBITED BY S 203 OF THE CRIMINAL PROCEDURE ACT 2011.

IN THE SUPREME COURT OF NEW ZEALAND

SC 47/2017
[2017] NZSC 105

BETWEEN	BRUCE JAMES SPITTLE Applicant
AND	THE QUEEN Respondent

Court:	William Young, Glazebrook and OʼRegan JJ
Counsel:	A H Waalkens QC for Applicant Z R Johnston for Respondent
Judgment:	6 July 2017

JUDGMENT OF THE COURT

The application for leave to appeal is dismissed.

____________________________________________________________________

REASONS

The applicant was charged with two counts of indecent assault. He was convicted after a jury trial. He appealed to the Court of Appeal on the basis that the verdicts of the jury were unreasonable, but his appeal was dismissed.[1]
[1]Spittle v R [2017] NZCA 116 (Winkelmann, Duffy and Whata JJ) [Spittle (CA)].
The applicant seeks leave to appeal to this Court, arguing that a miscarriage of justice has occurred or will occur if leave is not given, because the verdicts of the jury were unreasonable. Thus, he seeks, in effect, to advance the same arguments as those advanced on his behalf in the Court of Appeal. He does not suggest that any point of public importance arises.
The incidents that founded the charges against the applicant occurred in 1999 when he was a psychiatrist and the complainant was a patient of his. She suffered from a number of mental health disorders at that time. The complainant raised concerns about aspects of the applicant’s treatment of her in 1999, but did not at that time allege any sexual touching. The applicant’s response to the concerns raised in 1999 was to the effect that he acknowledged he had crossed professional boundaries and became too involved with the complainant. However, he said there was no sexual component to his feelings for the complainant.
The complaint that the applicant had indecently assaulted the complainant was made in 2012. The complainant had received extensive treatment for her mental health disorders during the period between 1999 and 2012.
The applicant takes issue with a number of aspects of the judgment of the Court of Appeal. These include its assessment of the expert evidence given by both Crown and defence witnesses at the applicant’s trial, the weight it gave to the explanations for the complainant’s delay in complaining of the applicant’s conduct (including its assessment of the extent of the counselling the complainant had received during the period of the delay), its assessment of evidence relating to the risk of distortion on the complainant’s behalf given her history of unwanted relationships with males, its assessment of evidence relating to disassociation and its analysis of evidence highlighting inconsistencies between the complainant’s evidence at trial and records made at the time of the incidents founding the charges against the applicant.
We have considered the points raised by the applicant and the treatment of those points by the Court of Appeal. All were carefully considered by the Court of Appeal, and all the issues relating to the complainant’s…

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.

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Details

Case: [2017] NZSC 105
Decision Date: 6 July 2017

CaseChat Overview and Summary

The Supreme Court of New Zealand dismissed Bruce James Spittle's application for leave to appeal against his conviction for two counts of indecent assault. The case involved a psychiatrist accused of inappropriate conduct towards a patient. The applicant argued that a miscarriage of justice had occurred because the jury's verdicts were unreasonable. The Court of Appeal had already dismissed the applicant's appeal on the same grounds, and the applicant sought to appeal to the Supreme Court on the same issues.

The legal issues before the Supreme Court were whether the Court of Appeal had correctly assessed the evidence and the arguments raised by the applicant and whether it had adopted the correct approach in assessing the jury's verdicts. The applicant contended that the Court of Appeal had not properly evaluated the expert evidence and had given insufficient weight to the complainant's history of mental health issues and unwanted relationships. The applicant also argued that the Court of Appeal had erred in concluding that the jury's verdicts were reasonable because they were available to the jury.

The Supreme Court found that the Court of Appeal had carefully considered all the points raised by the applicant and had provided reasons for its conclusions. The Court of Appeal had concluded that the jury had a sufficient and proper basis to prefer the complainant's account over the applicant's and that the verdicts were not beyond reasonable doubt. The Supreme Court was not persuaded that the applicant had demonstrated that a substantial miscarriage of justice had occurred, and therefore declined leave to appeal. The applicant's arguments were essentially a second attempt to re-litigate the case, which the Court found to be without merit.

The final orders of the Supreme Court were that the application for leave to appeal was dismissed. The Court did not see any point of public importance in the appeal, and it was not in the interests of justice to hear the appeal. The applicant's arguments were deemed to be an attempt to re-litigate the case, which had already been carefully considered by the Court of Appeal. The Supreme Court was not persuaded that a miscarriage of justice had occurred, and therefore declined to grant leave to appeal.

Orders