Citation: R v Ravindran (No 3) [2013] NSWSC 1055
Court: Supreme Court of New South Wales
Date: 5 August 2013
Judge: Campbell J
Background
The accused stood trial before a judge alone on a charge of murdering his father. The Crown alleged the deceased was killed by a combination of forcible blows from a baseball bat and strangulation with a rope ligature. Two mechanisms of injury were alleged because the expert evidence indicated the fatal injuries could not be explained by a single cause.
The accused had given an account to ambulance officers that he discovered his father hanging from a bolt in the ceiling of his bedroom, believing him to have committed suicide. According to that account, the accused, overcome by distress at his father's apparent self-inflicted death, struck the body with a baseball bat believing the man was already dead.
By the time of the application, the forensic pathologists who gave evidence had reached significant common ground: a large proportion of the deceased's injuries were, at least as a possibility, consistent with a self-hanging attempt. This convergence in expert opinion formed the foundation of the defence application.
Legal Issues
- Whether Campbell J, sitting as the tribunal of fact in a judge-alone trial, should exercise the power recognised in The Queen v Prasad (1979) 23 SASR 161 to acquit the accused at the close of the Crown case.
- Whether the Crown's evidence was so lacking in weight and reliability that no reasonable tribunal could safely convict on it.
- Whether the Crown could prove, beyond reasonable doubt, the indispensable intermediate fact required for the murder charge: namely, the exclusion of the possibility that the deceased had attempted to hang himself before the blows were struck.
Decision
Defence counsel accepted that there was legally sufficient evidence to support a conviction. The application therefore did not rest on a complete absence of proof. Instead, the argument was that the Crown evidence was so weak and unreliable in its weight that no reasonable tribunal could safely convict on it, the precise threshold identified by Chief Justice King in Prasad.
The central submission was that, because expert evidence could not exclude the possibility of a suicide attempt, the Crown could not prove the indispensable intermediate fact needed to establish the requisite intent for murder. If the accused believed his father was already dead when he struck him, the intent to kill or cause really serious physical injury could not be established.
Campbell J acknowledged the force of the argument and noted the unusual features of the case. However, his Honour was not persuaded that the Crown case had fallen below the Prasad threshold. The complexity of the evidence pointed against resolving the matter on a summary basis at that stage.
His Honour was careful to emphasise that refusing the application involved no concluded view whatsoever about whether the Crown would ultimately discharge its burden of proof beyond reasonable doubt. The trial was to continue, with the critical issues remaining entirely open.
Orders Made
No formal orders were made in this decision. The court refused the application for a Prasad direction and the trial continued.
Key Takeaways
- The Prasad power, as described by Chief Justice King, permits a tribunal of both law and fact to acquit an accused at the close of the Crown case even where there is technically sufficient evidence to convict, but only where that evidence is so lacking in weight and reliability that no reasonable tribunal could safely act on it.
- In a judge-alone trial, the presiding judge stands in the same position as a jury for the purpose of this power, and may exercise it at any time after the close of the prosecution case.
- Accepted authority holds that occasions warranting a Prasad direction will arise infrequently; where giving such a direction would require elaborate explanation, that is itself a signal the occasion has likely not arisen.
- Refusing a Prasad application carries no implication about whether the Crown will ultimately prove its case to the required standard. Campbell J expressly preserved an entirely open mind on the question of guilt.
- Where competing expert evidence leaves open a factual possibility capable of negating the necessary criminal intent, that does not automatically render the Crown case so unreliable as to warrant summary termination of the trial.
Legislation and Cases Referenced
Cases:
- The Queen v Prasad (1979) 23 SASR 161
Legislation:
No specific legislation was cited in the judgment.