Gonzales v The Queen [2023] NSWSC 323 | Case summary

Factual background

The Crown case against the applicant was circumstantial. For context to this application, a summary of the Crown Case is extracted from the judgment of McCallum J: "[16] The Crown alleged that the applicant committed the murders because he wanted to inherit his parents' property. It was alleged that he had attempted to poison his mother about 10 days before the murders and there was compelling evidence to that effect. The trial judge found at [38] of the sentencing judgment that the applicant's motive for the murders was that "he was fearful that, because of his poor performance in his university studies, his parents might take his car away from him and might withdraw other privileges which had been granted to him and that he wished to succeed, without delay and as sole heir, to his parents' property". [17] The offences were committed on 10 July 2001. The trial judge summarised the facts as follows (at [19]-[30] of the sentencing decision): "[19] At approximately 4.30pm the prisoner entered Clodine's bedroom, where she was studying. The prisoner was armed with a baseball bat or a bat similar to a baseball bat and with one or two kitchen knives which the prisoner had taken from a knife block in the kitchen of the house. These two knives were the longest knives in the set of knives in the block. [20] Inside Clodine's bedroom the prisoner, not necessarily in this order, compressed Clodine's neck endeavouring to strangle her, struck her at least six separate blows to the head with the bat and stabbed her many times with one or both of the knives. He inflicted five major stab wounds to Clodine's neck and two major stab wounds to her chest or abdomen. The cause of Clodine's death was the combined effect of the compression of her neck, the blunt force head injuries and the abdominal stab wounds. After killing Clodine the prisoner remained in the house. [21] A few minutes after 6 pm the prisoner's aunt Emily Luna came to 6 Collins Street. She saw the prisoner's car parked in the carport. She rang the front doorbell of the house but no one answered and she left. Although no one answered the front doorbell, the prisoner was still inside the house. [22] Mrs Gonzales left her husband's office at about ten to five in the afternoon, with an employee named Patricia Tonel. Shortly afterwards Mrs Gonzales parted company with Patricia Tonel. Mrs Gonzales then drove home to 6 Collins Street in her car, arriving home at about half past five. She entered the house. [23] Very shortly after Mrs Gonzales entered the house the prisoner attacked her with one of the kitchen knives, while Mrs Gonzales was in the living/dining room of the house. The prisoner inflicted multiple stab wounds and cuts to Mrs Gonzales' face, neck, chest and abdomen. Mrs Gonzales' windpipe was completely transected, that is the upper half of the windpipe was completely severed from the lower half. [24] That Mrs Gonzales was attacked very shortly after entering the house is shown by inter alia the circumstances that she was still wearing the shoes she had worn to work and her handbag was found on the floor close to her body. Mrs Gonzales' usual practice when she arrived home was to take off the shoes she had been wearing outside the house and put them in a shoe cupboard and to put her handbag in one or other of two special places. [25] Mr Gonzales left the office at Blacktown at some time after his wife. Records of the use of his mobile telephone show that at 6.23 Mr Gonzales made a call on the mobile telephone to the landline at 6 Collins Street. This call was not answered. [26] Mr Gonzales drove to his home, arriving at about 6.50 pm. He entered the house. Very shortly after entering the house the prisoner attacked Mr Gonzales with one of the kitchen knives, while Mr Gonzales was still close to the front door. The prisoner inflicted multiple stab wounds to Mr Gonzales' neck, chest, back and abdomen. One of the stab wounds penetrated his right lung, another penetrated his heart and another partially severed his spinal cord. Vastly more force was used by the prisoner than was necessary to kill Mr Gonzales. That Mr Gonzales was attacked shortly after entering the house is shown by inter alia the place in the house where he was attacked and the circumstances that he was still wearing the clothes and shoes he had worn to work and his briefcase was found on the floor near his body. [27] At some time on the evening of 10 July 2001 the prisoner spray painted on a wall of the combined family room/kitchen in the house the words 'Fuck off Asians KKK'. [28] After killing the three victims the prisoner disposed of the knife or knives he had used in stabbing the victims, the bat he had used in striking Clodine and the shoes and clothing he had been wearing at the time of committing the murders. The shoes and clothing had become blood stained. None of these items have ever been found. [29] On the previous night, that is the night of 9 July 2001 the prisoner had made arrangements with a friend Sam Dacillo, who lived nearby, that they would meet at 8 o'clock on the evening of 10 July at Sam Dacillo's house and go out together for the evening. On 10 July the prisoner, after committing the murders, went to Sam Dacillo's house, arriving there at about 8 pm. The prisoner and Sam Dacillo, who, of course, knew nothing about the murders and was told nothing about the murders by the prisoner, went together, in the prisoner's car, to the City. They went to Planet Hollywood in George Street and then to a nearby video games centre. Later in the evening the prisoner drove back to North Ryde. He dropped Sam Dacillo off at Sam Dacillo's home at about 11.30 and then drove to 6 Collins Street. [30] At some time after arriving at his home the prisoner made an emergency telephone call to the Ambulance Service. A tape recording of the emergency telephone call was played at the trial. The precise time of the telephone call was not fixed by any evidence at the trial. In the emergency telephone call the prisoner told the operator of the Service that someone had shot his parents and that there was a lot of blood. In the telephone call the prisoner sounded distraught." [18] The Crown submitted to the jury in his closing address that the applicant had deliberately stayed out late with Sam Dacillo in the expectation that a relative or friend would find the bodies and the offensive message painted on the wall before the applicant returned to the house so that he would then arrive with a ready alibi for police called to the scene (Tcpt, 13 May 2004, p 1378(14)-(45)). However, that did not happen and in due course the applicant arrived home (so the Crown alleged) to the scene that he had left. The Crown submitted that this unexpected turn of events explained aspects of the triple-0 call made by the applicant in which (so the Crown submitted) he gave an account of events which inadvertently supported the case that he had committed the murders and which was inconsistent with his later account to the jury (Tcpt, 13 May 2004, p 1379(4)-(17)). [19] The matters relied upon by the Crown to support its circumstantial case against the applicant were summarised by Adamson J at [10] of her Honour's reasons (drawn from the trial judge's summing-up at pp 37-42) as follows: "(1) Evidence as to the timing of the deaths, the location of the deaths at the family home and the sightings of the applicant's car in the carport at the house between 4.15pm and 4.30pm and again at about 6.05pm; (2) Evidence of knives missing from the knife block in the kitchen and of the stab wounds to victims which were consistent with the use of such knives; (3) Evidence of blood-stained shoe prints in the house made by an unusual type and style of shoe in the size owned by Mr Gonzales which were missing (and which the Crown said had been used by the applicant and disposed of subsequently); (4) Evidence as to the blunt force injuries to Clodine and the dents in the wall of her bedroom which were consistent with the applicant's baseball bat, which was missing, being used to inflict the injuries; (5) Evidence that after having been informed by Detective Sheehy on 22 July 2001 that certain unspecified blood-stained clothing had been found and sent for scientific analysis the applicant supplied Detective Sheehy with a list of missing clothing, including three track suits on the following day, 23 July 2001; (6) Evidence of only a limited amount of blood on the applicant's person notwithstanding his assertion that he had hugged and tried to revive each of the deceased upon returning home on the night of the murders; (7) Evidence that the spray painter who was responsible for the graffiti was left-handed, as was the applicant, and evidence of the similarity between the applicant's handwriting and that of the graffiti; (8) Evidence that a spot of paint on the jumper which the applicant was wearing when the police arrived was indistinguishable in colour and composition from the paint used to spray the graffiti on the wall; (9) Evidence that the applicant asked for Emily Luna's (Mrs Gonzales' sister's) phone number when he arrived at Sam Dacillo's house (which the Crown said indicated that he knew that Ms Luna had come to the Gonzales family home that afternoon and might have seen his car in the driveway); (10) Evidence that, when the applicant was driving Mr Dacillo home on the evening of 11 July 2001, he slowed down when he passed the Gonzales family home and looked towards it; (11) The disparity between what the applicant said in his Triple-0 call ("my family is dead") and his account to police that he called Triple-0 as soon as he found out that his father was dead; (12) The absence of any real sign of forced entry, the evidence of damage to the entry points being limited to the cutting of a screen door; (13) The fact that no cash carried by either Mr or Mrs Gonzales was taken, which the Crown submitted excluded robbery as a motive; (14) Internet searches conducted by the applicant concerning ordering poisonous seeds, poisonous plants and how to make poisons from them; (15) Mrs Gonzales' illness between 1 and 3 July 2018, which, on the Crown case, was due to her having been poisoned by the applicant; (16) The applicant's written communications to the Campbell Soup Company, the Australian Federal Police and the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service." [20] The evidence in support of point (1) above was extensive. The detail of that evidence (as summarised by Adamson J) is set out below. [21] The Crown submitted, in respect of point (5) above, that the jury would readily infer that the applicant reported the alleged theft of his tracksuit pants because he was worried that his clothing had been found by police and that the scientific analysis would incriminate him in the murders. [22] The Crown also alleged that the applicant put forward false alibis, gave inconsistent accounts and left false trails. Those matters were summarised by the trial judge in the sentencing judgment as follows at [53]-[64]: "False Alibis and False Trails [53] At the trial the prisoner raised two alibis, both of which the jury must have rejected beyond reasonable doubt. [54] The first alibi was to the following effect. On the afternoon of 10 July 2001 the prisoner left his father's office at Blacktown at about 4.30. On the trip home the prisoner received a text message from Sam Dacillo that Sam Dacillo had a basketball game that evening and would be unable to meet the prisoner at 6 o'clock, as had previously been arranged between them. The prisoner arrived home at about 6 o'clock and drove into the carport. However, he did not enter the house. While he was in the car in the carport, he received a call on his mobile telephone from Sam Dacillo. An arrangement was made between the prisoner and Sam Dacillo that they should meet at 8 o'clock. The prisoner decided that, before meeting Sam Dacillo at 8 o'clock, he would visit a friend Raf DeLeon, who lived at Kings Ridge near Blacktown. The prisoner drove to the Blacktown area but was unable to find Raf DeLeon's house. As time was passing, the prisoner abandoned the attempt to visit Raf DeLeon and drove back to North Ryde in order to keep his appointment with Sam Dacillo at 8 o'clock. [55] The first alibi was constructed by the prisoner so as to account for inter alia the presence of the prisoner's car in the carport shortly after 6 o'clock, the prisoner being aware that his aunt had come to the house shortly after 6 o'clock and would have seen the prisoner's car. [56] The first alibi was advanced in a statement the prisoner made to police on the night of 10-11 July 2001 and the prisoner maintained the first alibi on a number of subsequent occasions, including in an interview by police at 6 Collins Street on 1 6 July 2001 and in further interviews by the police on 1 August and 3 August, 2001. [57] In January 2002 the prisoner abandoned the first alibi. He had concluded that there were insuperable difficulties with the first alibi. The first alibi was inconsistent with the sighting of his car in the carport at 6 Collins Street by Mariella Pavone between 4.15 and 4.30 in the afternoon of 10 July. The first alibi was not corroborated by, and was inconsistent with, information supplied to the police by Sam Dacillo and records of the use of the mobile telephones of the prisoner and Sam Dacillo. At the trial the prisoner in giving evidence accepted that the first alibi was 'a lot of lies'. [58] In January 2002 the prisoner began constructing a second alibi. In an intercepted telephone conversation with a friend on 10 January 2002 the prisoner told the friend that the new alibi would have to be 'solid', otherwise 'it could blow in my face again'. The second alibi was elaborated in a written statement by the prisoner dated 12 April 2002, which was provided to police on 22 May 2002. At the trial the prisoner gave evidence in chief in support of the second alibi. [59] The second alibi was to the following effect. On the afternoon of 10 July 2001 the prisoner left his father's office at Blacktown at some time before 4 o'clock. He arrived home, parked his car in the carport but did not go inside the house. He walked to a nearby service station in Wicks Road, North Ryde. After waiting a few minutes at the service station he caught a passing taxi and travelled in the taxi to Chatswood, where he alighted. He walked to the premises of a brothel at Chatswood. After waiting for a period of time inside the brothel he selected a prostitute, who he named, and had sex with her. Afterwards he walked to the railway station and caught a taxi back to his home. He did not enter the house. He got into his own car and drove his own car to Sam Dacillo's house. [60] The second alibi was constructed by the prisoner so as to account for inter alia the sightings of his car in the carport at the house by both Mariella Pavone and Emily Luna and to provide an explanation of how the prisoner's car, but not the prisoner himself, could have been at 6 Collins Street. [61] The second alibi was also constructed by the prisoner so that the alibi itself would provide an explanation of why he had not advanced the alibi earlier. The prisoner said that he had not told the truth earlier about his movements before meeting Sam Dacillo, because he was too embarrassed to reveal to members of his extended family that he had been with a prostitute on the night his parents were killed. The prisoner took steps to collect evidence which would support his second alibi, including pressuring the prostitute at the brothel to give false evidence to support the alibi and persuading a taxi driver who he met in Chatswood in January 2002 to make an untruthful statement, the terms of which were dictated by the prisoner, that the taxi driver recalled seeing the prisoner in the second week of July 2001, picking him up from a service station in Wicks Road, North Ryde and taking him to Chatswood Railway Station. [62] At the trial the second alibi was contradicted by evidence from the prostitute, evidence of records of the brothel which showed that the prostitute had not been at work at the brothel on 10 July 2001, evidence of the taxi driver and evidence of records of the driving by the taxi driver of his taxi on 10 July 2001. [63] Apart from raising the two false alibis, the prisoner laid many false trails, with the intention of misleading the police who were investigating the deaths of the members of his family and of diverting suspicion from himself. [64] These false trails included spray painting the words 'Fuck off Asians KKK' on the wall in the house, which was intended by the prisoner to mislead the police into supposing that the members of the prisoner's family had been the victims of racist crimes; telling police that after he returned home on the night of 10 July 2001 he had seen and heard some intruder leaving the house; suggesting to police that members of his family had been killed at the instigation of a prominent Philippines businessman, who he named; telling police that he had received threatening emails; reporting to police that in the early hours of 30 May 2002 an attempt had been made to break into the unit in which he was living; and claiming that on 31 May 2002 he had been abducted and assaulted. All of these assertions made to police were false and knowingly false." [23] At the trial, the applicant relied by way of alibi on the evidence as to when he was with Sam Dacillo, which he contended gave him a credible alibi from about 7.45 pm until emergency services arrived at the family home. He denied poisoning his mother; he said there was an explanation for the presence of his car at the house at the times identified; he contended that the evidence supposedly connecting him with the graffiti (similar hand-writing and left-handedness) was inconclusive; he put forward an innocent explanation for the similarity between the paint used in the graffiti and a spot of paint on the jumper he wore that night; he said that the evidence as to the times of death did not accord with other aspects of the Crown case; that there was a reasonable doubt based on multiple credible death threats received by the family; and that there was no evidence that he had cleaned up or disposed of any evidence.

Material relied upon in the present application

I confirm that I have had regard to the following material for the purposes of this application: 1. The principal application and accompanying material dated 16 July 2021 and filed 19 July 2021. 2. Submissions on behalf of the Attorney-General of New South Wales dated 12 October 2021 and filed 13 October 2021. 3. Applicant's submissions in reply with annexures dated 27 January 2022 and filed 28 January 2022. 4. Letter from the applicant to the Crown Solicitor's Office dated 8 February 2022. 5. Supplementary submissions on behalf of the Attorney-General of New South Wales dated 21 March 2022. 6. Letter from the applicant addressed to the Registrar of the Supreme Court seeking leave to file additional submissions dated 22 March 2022. 7. Applicant's submissions in response to the supplementary submissions on behalf of the Attorney-General of New South Wales dated and filed 28 March 2022. 8. Letter from the Crown Solicitor's Office to the applicant dated 6 April 2022 referring to telephone conversations on 4 and 5 April 2022 regarding photos taken of the applicant's jumper taken by the Forensic Services Group. 9. Letter from the applicant addressed to the Registrar of the Supreme Court seeking leave to file additional submissions dated 7 April 2022. 10. Letter from the applicant addressed to the Associate to Lonergan J dated 8 April 2022. 11. Applicant's supplementary submissions dated 26 April 2022 relating to ground 6 of the appeal with annexures. 12. Correspondence of Nikolaos Siafakas, AXL Legal, to the Supreme Court Registry, dated 29 April 2022, attaching the following: 1. Letter from Nikolaos Siafakas dated 28 April 2022. 2. Letter from the Crown Solicitor's Office to the applicant dated 6 April 2022. 3. Letter from the applicant addressed to the Registrar of the Supreme Court dated 26 April 2022. 4. Applicant's supplementary submissions dated 26 April 2022, relating to ground 6 of the appeal, with annexures. 1. Email correspondence from the Crown Solicitor's Office, confirming that the Attorney-General neither consents to nor opposes a grant of leave for the applicant to file further submissions. 2. Further supplementary submissions on behalf of the Attorney-General together with annexures dated 22 June 2022. 3. A letter of Nikolaos Siafakas dated 23 June 2022. 4. Applicant's submissions in reply dated 26 June 2022.
The applicant's original application dated 16 July 2021 raised five grounds of appeal namely: 1. Ground 1: The lack of crucial forensic evidence. 2. Ground 2: The equivocal nature of the two primary aspects of the Crown's circumstantial case. 3. Ground 3: Exculpatory evidence overlooked by the Crown's forensic pathologist. 4. Ground 4: Exculpatory Crown witnesses's evidence; and 5. Ground 5: the alternative hypothesis.
Grounds 1 and 3 were comprehensively considered and determined in the judgment of Adamson J. Ground 5 was dealt with in the judgment McCallum J and the repetition, in a slightly different guise, of the previous ground regarding the evidence of the applicant's aunt - ground 4 - formed the basis of the refusal by Fagan J to consider or otherwise deal with in the applicant's third application in 2021.
The allegation contained in ground 2 that police fabricated the evidence of the blue paint on the jumper, later augmented by the theory of the "missing" photographs, is new, although the issue of blue paint on the jumper was dealt with at length in the evidence at the trial.
The Attorney has submitted that given that all of grounds 1 to 5 have been dealt with both at trial and in the previous three applications and that the applicant's argument about the police fabricating evidence is without basis, the application should be dealt with under s 79(3) which provides a broad discretion to refuse to consider the application: Application by Sef Gonzales pursuant to s 78 Crimes (Appeal and Review) Act 2001 NSW (No 2) [2019] NSWSC 1412 per McCallum J.
The applicant replied in January 2022 that the Court should reject the Attorney's position, and that there is new material comprising two expert reports that the applicant was "unable to obtain" prior to these submissions. A report of Bryon Collins, forensic pathologist, was attached and based on certain limited information and assumptions Dr Collins answered some questions regarding the forensic evidence related to the poisoning of the applicant's mother by a toxic or lethal dose of ricin/abrin, concluding that there is "absolutely no robust medical/toxicological evidence to support the hypothesis…" and that the provisional diagnosis of "acute infective colitis" provide by Dr Cunningham is entirely reasonable having regard to the fact that her clinical signs/symptoms and abnormal result of the pathology tests were, unfortunately, not definitively investigated". A link to a webpage about abrin and ricin poisoning was also attached.
As submitted by the Attorney, this issue was dealt with at trial, including, critically the evidence of Dr Rowell which explained that the progress of symptoms would depend on the dose of poison administered - Transcript 8 April 2004 at page 171.
In any event, the Crown's case regarding the poisoning of the applicant's mother around 1 July 2001 is only one circumstance of its overall case and did not depend solely on medical evidence. There was the purchase of poisonous seeds which the applicant received on 29 June just two days prior to the onset of her symptoms. All of this was left to the jury to accept or reject. The possibility that the applicants' mother's symptoms were caused by something other than ricin or abrin poisoning was also left to the jury.
The second report referred to by the applicant is a one-page report dated 17 November 2021 of John Franceschini, a chemist. The report is elliptical and does not sufficiently explain the basis upon which the author agreed to the question posed: "Would you agree that Mr Waight's conclusion on page 6 of his report is that no paint resembling the graffiti paint was found on the jumper?"
Even if I am wrong about that, and the report is a sufficient basis to express the view that it does, as submitted by the Attorney, this report adds nothing of evidentiary value.
There was some further information provided as to Eduardo Cojuangco and other political figures in the Philippines together with links to news articles and webpages that the applicant claimed were relevant to ground 5. I accept the Attorney's submission that none of this material advances the issue at all. It has been dealt with at trial and in the previous applications. It is speculative, the issue was before the jury, and they must have rejected the possibility of there having been someone else responsible for the murders in arriving at the verdicts they did.
On 28 March 2022, the applicant wrote to the Court insisting that there were errors in the Attorney's 21 March 2022 submissions. These submissions amount to nothing more than an argumentative revisiting of the same material the applicant has already raised.
On 7 April 2022, the applicant wrote to the Registrar stating that he had "recently discovered evidence which would substantiate a) the tampering/planting of evidence and b) the deliberate cover-up of the tampering of evidence which perverted the course of justice and denied me procedural fairness". The applicant stated that the material required a "high-resolution computer monitor for him to properly consider to which he could not gain access".
On 8 April 2022, the applicant submitted that the evidence of Detective Gibbs was suspect because the series of photographs taken of the front sleeve of the jumper in question has missing six photographs in the "sequence", and of the remaining nine photographs, none show an image of the front left sleeve of the jumper. The applicant submitted that this meant that the police were hiding forensic evidence in breach of the principles in Wood v R [2012] NSWCCA 21 at [713] to [714].
On 26 April 2022, the applicant sent a further submission attaching two compact discs containing the photographs in issue that were served as part of the Prosecution Brief and requesting the Court consider Ground 6, prior to grounds 1-5 and that should ground 6 be successful, he would "formally withdraw" grounds 1-5, but if not, the applicant seeks to rely on the "cumulative force" of grounds 1-6.
The attached written submissions assert that in the applicant's opinion none of the photographs show the front left sleeve of the jumper near the cuff where the blue paint was seen by Detective Gibbs. The applicant goes on to speculate that there must have been photographs taken and that they have been hidden from him, and that there was inconsistency in the evidence of Detective Gibbs when he gave evidence of only one blue mark on the jumper instead of two, one paint, one pen.
On 22 June 2022, the Attorney responded, advising that the "missing" photographs 0-6 on roll 35 were of a vehicle unrelated to this criminal investigation. The submissions were accompanied by a letter dated 7 June 2022 by Rebecca Atherton, a Lawyer in the Office of the General Counsel, NSW Police Force, stating that this was the position, providing copies of the photographs concerned, and the relevant aspects of the statement of Detective Gibbs.
There is in my view no reason to doubt the accuracy and truthfulness of the contents of this letter or the accuracy of the attachments.
The Attorney submitted that there is no basis for the submission that relevant photographs were withheld. Nor is there any basis, other than speculation by the applicant, to state that the FSG Crime Laboratory "must have" taken other photographs of the front left sleeve of the jumper that were deliberately omitted from the Prosecution Brief.
The position is that while the photographs in the Appendix are not labelled, photograph number 8 is of the front left sleeve including the cuff.
The transcript from the trial shows that during his evidence Detective Gibbs was taken to a large number of photos, including this photograph, (numbered 113 at the trial), and referred to the "discolouration" "on the sleeve of the jumper". Dr Maynard's evidence was that police had brought the blue area on the jumper to his attention (transcript at trial page 558), and that he saw it not by visual inspection but with a microscope.
The chemical analysis that Dr Maynard conducted on the jumper, the wall and the spray paint he described as "extremely sensitive and capable of accurate analysis on very, very small samples".
I accept the submission of the Attorney that the notion that the police would plant a microscopic quantity of paint on the applicant's jumper after it was examined by the laboratory that was the same as the paint used by the killer to graffiti a wall inside the house, is highly implausible and I reject the applicant's submission on this issue.
The allegation by the applicant that the mark was "planted" is groundless and inconsistent with the applicant's defence at trial, where the applicant did not dispute there was blue paint on his jumper but told police and gave evidence before the jury that he had spray painted some wood chips with blue paint (Trial Transcript page 1271-4).
Further handwritten submissions by the applicant dated 26 June 2022 comprise a repetition of the arguments already raised, with a suggestion that the Court should conclude that the response provided by police and the Attorney on 22 June 2022 is untruthful, and that there should have been an "independent" or "objective" review by a person without "any conflict of interest" rather than the response being provided by police who investigated the matter.
I reject those submissions. Ground 6 has no substance. I reject the submission that there is any "cumulative force" in grounds 1 to 6 being considered together as suggested by the applicant in his letter to the Registrar dated 26 April 2022.
For the sake of completeness, I also refer to a letter sent to my Associate of 23 June 2022 by Nikolaos Siafakas, a solicitor who had previously been involved in the application made in 2018 and who had also forwarded a copy of the applicant's submissions dated 28 April 2022 to the Court.
Mr Siafakis stated that this comprised what the applicant had asked him to convey in a telephone conversation with him. The applicant sought leave to file "concise submissions to assist the court with respect to what he contends to be demonstrably false statements by the police" referred to in the Attorney's submissions of 22 June 2022.The letter offered to "facilitate a demonstration" that the photos in annexure L to the statement of Detective Gibbs' statement were not disclosed to the defence. This purported "demonstration" related to the issue of the blue pen line "of which there is only one" on the jumper and which would "categorically establish by reference to Dr Maynard's report, that the photographs are not what Detective Gibbs has claimed to be".
This letter pre-dated the handwritten submissions of the applicant which I have considered but nothing was said in the handwritten submissions suggesting such a demonstration.
I do not consider the demonstration proposed to be of any utility at all given the matters set out at [25] to [32] of this judgment and I decline to allow it.

Gonzales v The Queen

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Judgment (7 paragraphs)

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Cases Cited (6)

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