Summary
The Supreme Court upheld acquittals in a prosecution alleging that the accused conspired to kill two motorcyclists using a lorry and iron rods. The circumstantial evidence did not establish conspiracy, identify the accused as participants or exclude an accident involving an unknown vehicle. Police accounts of statements denied by witnesses could not supply the missing proof. The High Court’s reversal of the convictions was not perverse.
Issues
- Whether the circumstantial evidence established the alleged murder conspiracy beyond reasonable doubt and justified reversing the acquittals.
Held
- Circumstantial evidence must form a complete chain consistent only with guilt and excluding reasonable alternatives. Suspicion arising from property disputes cannot replace proof. An acquittal reinforcing the presumption of innocence should not ordinarily be reversed without perversity. (¶¶ 189, 190, 191, 192, 193, 194, 195, 196)
- Medical evidence did not conclusively establish fatal assaults with iron rods and remained consistent with collision and a fall or being run over. Recovery of a rod from an accessible pond, without forensic linkage and with serious evidentiary deficiencies, did not establish the alleged assaults. (¶¶ 144, 145, 146, 147, 148, 149, 150, 151)
- Purchase and repair of the lorry, generic similarities in glass or paint, and the unreliable identification by the repair worker did not prove the vehicle’s involvement or the accused’s presence. Even assumed involvement of the lorry would not itself establish murder by these accused. (¶¶ 153, 154, 155, 156, 157, 158, 159, 160, 161, 162, 163, 164, 165)
- The alleged conspiracy was not proved by the investigating officer’s hearsay account of police statements categorically denied by the supposed witnesses. The handwriting evidence could at most show one accused’s presence at the lodge six months earlier, rather than a conspiracy. (¶¶ 174, 175, 176, 177, 178, 179, 180, 181, 182, 183, 184, 185, 186, 187, 188)
- The prosecution failed to exclude the strong possibility that an unknown vehicle caused an accidental death. The High Court’s reasons were not perverse and its acquittals were rightly entered. (¶¶ 194, 197, 198)
Result
Appeals dismissed, leaving the High Court’s acquittals undisturbed. Appeals concerning accused 4 and 5 had abated following their deaths; accused 7 had died during the High Court appeal.