Citation: R v Geeves; R v Geeves [2024] NSWSC 815
Court: Supreme Court of New South Wales
Date: 2 July 2024
Judge(s): Lonergan J
Background
Both accused, a male and female partner, have pleaded not guilty to the murder of a young woman who was last seen in early June 2002. The deceased had lived with the accused couple intermittently over the preceding year or two and had given birth to a baby, whose father was the male accused. The deceased was 19 years old at the time of her disappearance.
A central plank of the Crown case was that the deceased would never have voluntarily abandoned her infant. The Crown also alleged that the accused couple had used the deceased as a surrogate mother and then disposed of her when she was no longer of use, given the female accused's inability to have further children.
Before the trial commenced, the Crown sought to lead evidence, including medical records and witness statements, concerning a pregnancy the deceased had undergone in 1997 to 1998, which she terminated in early 1998. Both accused objected to that evidence on the ground that it was irrelevant to any fact in issue.
Legal Issues
- Whether evidence of the deceased's 1997 to 1998 pregnancy and subsequent termination was relevant under section 55 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW)
- Whether that evidence should be excluded under the general discretion in section 135 of the Act, on the basis that its probative value was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice, confusion, or undue waste of time
- Whether the mandatory exclusion rule in section 137 of the Act applied, because the probative value of the evidence was outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice to the accused
Decision
Lonergan J ruled that the evidence of the 1997 to 1998 pregnancy and termination was relevant within the meaning of section 55. The fact that the deceased had fallen pregnant, that this was known to the accused couple, and that she had received counselling about her reproductive options all bore directly on whether the later pregnancy involving the male accused was a wanted one. Relevantly, the deceased knew she had the option of terminating that later pregnancy and did not do so.
The judge found that the earlier pregnancy also shed light on the Crown's theory that the accused couple had a motive for involving the deceased in their plans to have more children. Evidence that the deceased's fertility was known to the accused, combined with evidence that the female accused had suffered multiple miscarriages and had used the word "surrogate" in reference to the deceased after the baby was born, meant this earlier pregnancy had reasonably significant probative value on a fact clearly in issue.
On the exclusion questions, the court declined to exclude the evidence under either section 135 or section 137. The evidence carried sufficient probative weight, and its admission did not give rise to the danger of unfair prejudice to the accused, nor was it misleading, confusing, or likely to cause undue delay.
The court placed no weight on two additional pieces of potential evidence cited by the Crown, being the recollections of a neighbour and an undated purported suicide letter. The timing and context of those items remained unclear.
Orders Made
No orders were made in this decision.
Key Takeaways
- Evidence of a deceased person's prior pregnancy and termination can satisfy the relevance threshold under section 55 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW) where it bears on a fact in issue, such as whether a later pregnancy was wanted and whether the deceased would have voluntarily left a child.
- Under section 55, relevance does not require that evidence directly prove a charged act; it is sufficient that the evidence could rationally affect, even indirectly, the probability of a fact in issue.
- The Supreme Court found that evidence of reasonably significant probative value will not be excluded under section 137 merely because it touches on sensitive personal history, provided it does not create a danger of unfair prejudice that outweighs that probative value.
- Where motive is part of the Crown case, evidence connecting an accused's alleged purpose to specific circumstances known to them, such as the deceased's demonstrated fertility, can be relevant and admissible.
- Courts will scrutinise each tendered item individually: Lonergan J declined to admit two items cited by the Crown in support of the same point, because their temporal and contextual foundations were insufficiently clear.
Legislation and Cases Referenced
Legislation:
- Evidence Act 1995 (NSW), ss 55, 97, 135, 137
Cases cited:
None stated in the judgment.