12 The Coroner rejected the plaintiff's application. The plaintiff was sworn and (after some housekeeping questions which related to the whereabouts of another witness) the examination proceeded:
SINGLETON: Q. Thank you Mr Correll. Did you know Rachelle Childs?
A. Yes I did.
SINGLETON: I think my friend wants to assist.
JOHNSTON: Your Honour, again, it's on my advice. I'd like Mr Correll to make a formal objection to giving evidence. He can do that at this point, now that a question's been asked of him. I expect your Honour will immediately overrule that objection, but …
HER HONOUR: I don't see that his answer to that question could possibly incriminate him.
JOHNSTON: No, I'm - the global position that I'm attempting to protect at this stage your Honour and it may well - again, it's a matter of unresolved authorities that - I'm quite prepared to be wrong at this stage, but on my advice to Mr Correll, I think his position is best protected by, on this one occasion, making a global objection which your Honour will overrule.
HER HONOUR: Thank you Mr Johnston. I have considered the aspects of natural justice. I have considered your application in light of the submissions previously made as well and it's my view, having regard to s 33 and s 33AA, that my role is to determine whether or not the answer that Mr Correll to such a question might tend to incriminate him and I cannot see that an answer he would give to that question, if responsive, might incriminate him, so I will ask that if you do wish to raise the objection you do it on a question by question basis.
JOHNSTON: Your Honour pleases.
SINGLETON: Q. How did you know Rachelle Childs?
A. Based on advice from Mr Johnston …
JOHNSTON: Q. No, sorry. You made your objection, sorry Mr Correll. Just continue, sorry. Thank you.
SINGLETON: Q. How did you know Rachelle Childs?
A. I worked with Rachelle. (T 11/12/06 11.7-50)
13 The examination of the plaintiff proceeded and he answered the questions asked of him without taking further objection. His examination continued on 12 December. He again answered questions without taking further objection. Counsel assisting foreshadowed that he proposed to move to the topic of the plaintiff's movements in the days leading up to the death of Rachelle Childs. The examination continued:
Q. We might as well just start at the beginning. What do you recall of the Sunday, the Sunday before she was killed?
A. The Sunday before?
Q. Yeah. Would you find it easier to go backwards or forwards in time? I'm going to ask you about all of those in the week. Would you find it easier to start at the end and go backwards or start at the beginning and go forwards?
A. You're talking about the times before and after, with all due respect, Mr Singleton, I have given account on that situation on three lengthy record of interviews with the investigating detectives and I am very willing to answer questions that you have that the detectives may not have asked me, but on my barrister's advice I refuse to answer that question on the ground that it may incriminate me.
Q. How could it incriminate you?
OBJECTION
HER HONOUR: Do you wish to make a submission?
JOHNSTON: Yes I do, your Honour.
HER HONOUR: What's your submission?
JOHNSTON: The submission is that we have entered into a territory now, once Mr Singleton's counsel assisting started cross-examining Mr Correll on the statement of KP9. At that time he started putting propositions which if accepted by Mr Correll may tend to implicate him in an indictable offence, specifically the death of Rachelle Childs.
HER HONOUR: But sorry, just if I can deal with that, because I thought your client's objection was to a different line of questioning.
JOHNSTON: It is.
HER HONOUR: So I will deal with that aspect now. I invited you, and this is no criticism of you whatsoever, Mr Johnston, but I invited you on behalf of your client to raise an objection to questions specifically as they went along, I didn't anticipate there was any objection to those questions. Those questions have been asked and answered. Are you now seeking to re-visit those answers?
JOHNSTON: Your Honour, what I'm doing at this point in time, my client is the person that raises the objection as your Honour is well aware. My client didn't raise the objection at another point in time, though he did raise an overall objection at the commencement of these proceedings.
HER HONOUR: No, that's correct. But as I said I did invite you on behalf of your client to raise an objection to questions specifically.
JOHNSTON: I understand that, your Honour, the legislation requires …
HER HONOUR: So can I just get back to whether or not are we re-visiting the answers to those questions concerning as you put it, the aspects raised through KP9?
JOHNSTON: Not those specific questions. But the point that has been raised by my client at this point of time is the area that counsel assisting is attempting to enter into now is material that he has previously answered in some detail. And he objects to providing any further answers in relation to those particular areas on the basis that there is no purpose to ask any further questions other than attempt to break his account down and an attempt to incriminate him. The answers, in whatever form, may form a sequence of circumstances that can be used against him in a prosecution if it were to arise. Now it's not simply a matter of whether a particular answer does incriminate him. The legislation exists for a person who is in a position where the answers may tend to incriminate him. And of this particular area the answers have already been given. The purpose of asking further questions is not to inform the inquiry or the inquest, the purpose of asking further questions at this point is an attempt to break down his account and to cross-examine him as a suspect against the account that he has previously given and to challenge that account against some other accounts that make up the overall brief in relation to this matter. In my submission to your Honour it is a matter where s 33AA protection should be provided to Mr Correll and you should grant him a certificate and then if from that point onwards he is questioned the answers can assist the inquiry, if that's the course that your Honour chooses to take, but he is given a protection from any answers that may tend to incriminate him, that's the purpose of the section.
HER HONOUR: Thank you Mr Johnston. Mr Singleton, do you wish to respond to that?
SINGLETON: The question I asked was whether Mr Correll would find it easier to deal with this issue starting at Sunday and moving to the end of the week or starting at the end of the week and moving backwards. I fail to see how either answer could incriminate him or tend to incriminate him, and that's the issue that allegedly arises. Would any answer - well the true issue is, would the answer he intends to give incriminate him. Now I find it impossible to see how it would incriminate him if he said I prefer to go forwards in time or backwards in time or if he said I have no preference either way. Now that's the true issue. In my submission there is nothing that has been said to you that would persuade you that that question should not be allowed, but as my friend has in a sense gone to the next questions. The requirement for the objection to be valid is that the answer would tend to incriminate the witness, not that the line of questioning is on a sensitive area, not that the line of questioning might have certain intentions, it is that the answer would tend to incriminate the witness. So far nothing has been suggested as to why these answers would incriminate the witness.
…
Now my friend in a sense needs to choose and tell you that it will be incriminating for one reason or another, not simply to say in a very vague fashion that there may be a tendency depending on what the answer is going to be. Now if my friend, with respect, needs to confer with the witness to find out what the answers would be and he can then put a submission that there will be a tendency to incriminate, that is one thing, and I would certainly not oppose an adjournment for that purpose. But absent some specificity as to why there might be some incrimination in my respectful submission the better course would be to hear the answers and if there is an incriminating answer of course the Act allows for that to be dealt with retrospectively and that would be the better way to proceed, at least at this stage when we haven't really got anywhere. If we start to get repeated incriminating statements we might have to re-visit the more general approach that my friend seeks, but in my submission it is too premature.
HER HONOUR: I agree with that section, Mr Singleton, section 33AA of the Coroners Act 1980 and subsection (1) specifically refers to the giving of particular evidence. I don't see that section 33AA is invoked in any meaningful way at this stage for the reasons you have elaborated upon, Mr Singleton. I should just indicate as a partial response to Mr Johnston's submissions that Mr Correll is one of many witnesses who has been called to give evidence at this inquest. Most of those other witnesses have also provided very detailed accounts to the police and just to say that the fact that they have given answers to the police in a detailed manner previously would somehow expose them to incrimination in answering questions touching upon the same areas in this inquest to my mind holds no weight. There must be, as Mr Singleton suggests, something more specific than that. So Mr Johnston, the ball is back in your court so to speak. I will allow the questions to be asked with each particular question. If you are instructed on behalf of your client to raise the objection so be it and I will consider it on a question by question basis. But at this stage I do not see that 33AA is meaningfully invoked.
JOHNSTON: I understand what your Honour is saying and this in part comes to a difference, an opinion that I have about coronial proceedings to which your Honour holds and I'm not about to quibble with your Honour's …
HER HONOUR: I don't think I've expressed an opinion but anyway.
JOHNSTON: Well you have provided your ruling and that's your ruling. But it comes down to this, your Honour. My client is a person who has been described as a person of interest in these proceedings. It has gone further than that there have been other people who have been described as a person of interest who have been announced as being excluded from the investigation and that my client remains as the only person who has not been excluded from the investigation as a person of interest. Now I don't know if that's correct but your Honour is nodding your head, that is certainly the media reports that have reported what has happened. So at this position in time he remains a person of interest that has not been excluded, in other words he is at a position where he may … is in effect a suspect.
HER HONOUR: As were each of the other witnesses to whom you have referred and your client may well be excluded at the day, I don't know yet.
JOHNSTON: I understand that, but absent these proceedings, your Honour, my client as a suspect has a right to silence and these proceedings have certain powers. Firstly to require him to attend. Secondly to require him to take an oath and if he refuses to take an oath and if he refuses to take an oath it's an offence. So in effect … (fault in recording equipment) … against his right to silence. By taking objection yesterday at the outset of these proceedings my client on … (fault in recording equipment tape A ends) …
(Tape B begins) …
HER Honour: Thank you, please continue Mr Johnston.
JOHNSTON: Thank you. I will back up just slightly just in case we missed it. By indicating an objection yesterday to giving evidence on my advice was effectively doing no more than indicating that he as a general principle objects to the fact that his right to silence has had an impact - these proceedings can compel him to give evidence against his right to silence. The question comes as to whether there is adequate protections in relation to these proceedings to his right to silence or whether Parliament's intention to override that right to silence is absolute in these proceedings. Now, it comes down in Part II, the interpretation of 33AA and your Honour has provided a ruling in relation to that. At this stage if we're dealing with it on a question by question basis, I accept that there is no particular answer to the question, what do you want to prefer that we start on the Sunday or the Thursday, that could be of itself incriminating, I accept that. But we are moving into a topic area, specifically the area of his movements on the night of 7 June 2001. But the purpose of asking questions in relation to those issues is to obtain an account from him which, if there were to be later proceedings against my client, and I don't know whether there will or there won't, but if there were to be later proceedings against him, anything he says in this courtroom can be used in evidence against him if your Honour does not grant him a general certificate. Now, when we go to - if we were - just take for a moment, if I was to - if these proceedings with the New South Wales Crime Commission, my client can take a general objection to giving evidence, needs to provide no basis for it and he gets a certificate for everything he says and it cannot be used in evidence against him.
HER HONOUR: We're a very different body here to the Crime Commission …
JOHNSTON: I understand that …
HER HONOUR: … with a very different focus under the Coroners Act in that I have defined manner, cause, date of death if I can.
JOHNSTON: I understand those matters your Honour but - and that's where we have different positions. Your Honour has a certain role to perform, I also have a certain role to perform on behalf of my client. My client's interests are not limited to what is happening within this courtroom, within this coronial inquest.
HER HONOUR: That's well understood.
JOHNSTON: That's why we are taking these steps to protect his position. If, by some chance, there was to be later proceedings which are beyond the control of Mr Correll they are - and they may well - ultimately whether or not your Honour makes a determination under s 19 may well be under the decision of the Director at a later point in time but, at this stage, we have competing positions.
HER HONOUR: I can assure I'm not competing in any sense. I'm just attempting to apply the Act and I don't see that I'm applying it with any intention of being adverse to anyone's interests. This is an inquisitorial proceeding and I'm attempting to find the truth. (T 12/12/06 28.27-43.1)