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Court of Criminal Appeal 29 May 2026

Camelo-Gomez v R

[2026] NSWCCA 63

Homicide
CRIME APPEALS APPEAL AGAINST CONVICTION ADMISSIBILITY OF EXPERT EVIDENCE S 79 OF THE EVIDENCE ACT 1995 (NSW) FORENSIC MEDICAL SPECIALIST

Citation: [2026] NSWCCA 63
Court: Court of Criminal Appeal (NSW)
Date: 29 May 2026
Judge(s): Price AJA at [1]; Campbell J at [15]; Yehia J at [28]

Background

The applicant was convicted by a jury of murdering her mother at the deceased's home in Lansvale on 2 November 2001. The Crown case was circumstantial, alleging the applicant committed the murder either alone or pursuant to a joint criminal enterprise with another person, most likely her brother. The applicant was sentenced to 20 years' imprisonment with a non-parole period of 14 years.

A central plank of the Crown's circumstantial case was that the applicant's account of being assaulted by an intruder using a ligature was a lie (referred to as "the intruder lie"). Proof of this lie relied significantly on expert evidence from a forensic medical specialist, Dr Van Diemen, about the injuries one would expect to observe from non-fatal ligature strangulation. The applicant sought leave to appeal out of time, challenging the admissibility of that expert evidence and contending the verdict was unreasonable.

  • Whether Dr Van Diemen's opinion evidence about expected external neck injuries from non-fatal ligature strangulation was properly admissible under s 79 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW) as opinion substantially based on specialised knowledge (Ground 1(a)).
  • Whether Dr Van Diemen's evidence about the frequency of bilateral blunt force facial injury was admissible (Ground 1(b)).
  • Whether the probative value of Dr Van Diemen's evidence was outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice under s 137 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW), including whether the "white coat effect" created a risk of the jury giving undue weight to the expert's conclusions, particularly where the expert's opinion was grounded in clinical experience without detailed evidence of individual cases observed (Ground 2).
  • Whether the guilty verdict was unreasonable or could not be supported having regard to the evidence (Ground 3).

Decision

On Ground 1(a), the Court unanimously held the evidence was admissible. Dr Van Diemen established her specialised knowledge as a clinical forensic medicine specialist, identified the factors relevant to the occurrence of visible external injury, and exposed her reasoning process by applying those factors to the factual assumptions derived from the applicant's account. The Court found she was not engaging in impermissible "prediction" but rather providing an opinion about what injuries she would have expected to observe, grounded in her specialised knowledge.

On Ground 1(b), the Court unanimously refused leave to rely on this ground. The evidence in question was limited in nature, formed part of a broader category of evidence, and was admissible given Dr Van Diemen's expertise. Even if it were inadmissible, it could not have realistically affected the jury's reasoning to its verdict.

Ground 2 divided the Court. The majority (Price AJA and Campbell J) found no real risk that the jury used the evidence unfairly. Campbell J provided additional reasons, emphasising that Dr Van Diemen's reasoning was "fully exposed" and that she provided four relevant factors derived from her specialised knowledge for assessing whether ligature strangulation would cause external injury. Campbell J held that clinical experience involving 20 to 40 cases of non-fatal ligature strangulation did not require recounting the details of each individual case before those cases could form part of the body of specialised knowledge. There was ample evidence enabling the jury to assess reliability and weight.

Yehia J dissented on Ground 2, finding that the absence of details about Dr Van Diemen's 20 to 40 clinical cases left the jury without sufficient information to properly evaluate the cogency of the expert's conclusions. In her Honour's view, this insufficiency heightened the risk of the "white coat effect," where a jury simply accepts an expert's conclusion because of their status, and the probative value was therefore outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice.

On Ground 3, the Court unanimously held the verdict was not unreasonable. The circumstantial evidence, including 13 enumerated circumstances establishing the "intruder lie," the applicant's presence in the house at the time of the murder, and the deceased's blood on the applicant's t-shirt, was sufficient to eliminate as a reasonable possibility the alternative hypothesis that the applicant's brother committed the murder without her knowledge or assistance. The Court had regard to the significant advantages enjoyed by the jury in this particular case. Yehia J assessed this ground on the basis of only the evidence she considered properly admissible (having dissented on Ground 2) and still found the verdict was open to the jury.

Orders Made

  • Time for filing the notice of appeal was extended.
  • Leave to rely on Ground 1(b) was refused.
  • Leave to appeal was granted in respect of Grounds 1(a), 2, and 3.
  • The appeal was dismissed.

Key Takeaways

  • A forensic medical expert expressing an opinion about expected injuries from a described mechanism of assault is not engaged in impermissible "prediction," provided the opinion is grounded in identified factors derived from specialised knowledge and applied to the relevant factual assumptions. The distinction between admissibility and weight remains significant.

  • Under s 137 of the Evidence Act 1995 (NSW), the "cogency" of an expert's exposed reasoning is a relevant consideration in assessing probative value. Where the path of reasoning is fully transparent and the relevant factors are ones a jury can readily apply, the risk of unfair prejudice is diminished.

  • Clinical experience forming part of an expert's specialised knowledge does not require detailed evidence of every individual case observed before it can ground an admissible opinion. The majority held that 20 to 40 cases of non-fatal ligature strangulation formed part of a broader body of expertise, not an isolated area of experience requiring individual case-by-case recounting.

  • The dissent on Ground 2 reflects a different view of the threshold at which insufficient detail about an expert's clinical experience base hampers the jury's ability to assess reliability, thereby increasing the risk of the "white coat effect" and unfair prejudice under s 137.

  • In assessing whether a circumstantial case yields an unreasonable verdict, the Court confirmed that the cumulative effect of circumstantial evidence, combined with the significant advantages of the trial jury, may be sufficient to eliminate alternative hypotheses inconsistent with guilt, even where no single piece of evidence is conclusive.

Legislation and Cases Referenced

Legislation:
- Crimes Act 1900 (NSW), s 18(1)(a)
- Criminal Appeal Act 1912 (NSW), ss 5(1)(b), 6(1), 10(1)(b)
- Evidence Act 1995 (NSW), ss 79, 137
- Supreme Court (Criminal Appeal) Rules 2021 (NSW), rr 3.5(5), 4.15

Key Cases:
- Brawn v The King [2025] HCA 20
- Chen v R (2018) 97 NSWLR 915; [2018] NSWCCA 106
- Coughlan v The Queen (2020) 267 CLR 654; [2020] HCA 15
- Dansie v The Queen (2022) 274 CLR 651; [2022] HCA 25
- Dasreef Pty Ltd v Hawchar (2011) 243 CLR 588; [2011] HCA 21
- Honeysett v The Queen (2014) 253 CLR 122; [2014] HCA 29
- IMM v The Queen (2016) 257 CLR 300; [2016] HCA 14
- Lang v The Queen (2023) 278 CLR 323; [2023] HCA 29
- M v The Queen (1994) 181 CLR 487; [1994] HCA 63
- Makita (Australia) Pty Ltd v Sprowles (2001) 52 NSWLR 705; [2001] NSWCA 305
- The Queen v Bauer (a pseudonym) (2018) 266 CLR 56; [2018] HCA 40
- Jha v The King [2026] NSWCCA 55
- Gould v R [2023] NSWCCA 103;