STATE GOVERNMENT FULLY INFORMED LEGAL COMMUNITY ABOUT CHANGES IN CHILD SEX CASES

The state government comprehensively informed judges about changes to the Evidence Act in child sex cases, a report provided to Attorney-General Linda Lavarch says.

Mrs Lavarch said four retrials relating to s 21AW of the Evidence Act were due to judges not properly directing juries, even though they appeared to know about the changes.

A departmental report received by Mrs Lavarch this afternoon said all key legal stakeholders, including the judiciary, had been consulted and informed about legal changes allowing children to give videotape evidence prior to trials.

“In most of these cases it appears that the judges did know about the need to give directions to juries about videotaped evidence from children,” Mrs Lavarch said.

“However, the Court of Appeal was not satisfied that the directions given were adequate under s 21AW,” she said.

Mrs Lavarch said the Court of Appeal had discovered the errors made by judges in the four cases, as it was meant to do.

“Our court system works by higher courts detecting and correcting errors made in lower courts and it has worked in these cases,” she said.

Mrs Lavarch said it was a pity that the public was being mislead about the great success of the new laws.

Due to evidence and other changes, there has been a 206% increase in convictions in trials involving child witnesses between 2004 and 2005 and a 274% increase in total prosecutions.

Mrs Lavarch said other errors contained in the media report this morning were:

• Retrials have ordered in four sex-offence cases, not seven, on the grounds of judges failing to give adequate directions under s 21AW of the Evidence Act. Of the four retrials, one is listed for trial, one resulted in a finding of not guilty, another did not proceed to retrial and a decision about a retrial is yet to be made in the final matter.

• Any retrials would cost much less than $1 million. No evidence was provided in this morning’s media report about how this figure was arrived at.

Mrs Lavarch said a suggestion by the Leader of the Liberal Party, Bruce Flegg, that retrials were unlikely to proceed because victims would not want to give evidence again was also wrong.

“Evidence given by victims and vulnerable witnesses has been videotaped and will not need to be given again,” she said.

“Mr Flegg owed it to the victims in these cases to make the simple checks that would have prevented them being distressed.”

A report provided to Mrs Lavarch this afternoon said comprehensive consultation occurred with the judiciary and the legal profession in 2002 and 2003 in the development stages of the legislation.

Information sessions were held after the introduction of the legislation, including:

• A briefing of the Bar Association by the Director of Public Prosecutions in early 2004.
• A briefing of magistrates in March 2004 by officers of the Department of Justice and Attorney-General.
• A briefing by departmental officers of Legal Aid Queensland conference attendees in May 2004.
• Informing DPP Prosecutors of the provisions at a staff conference in December 2003.

The report said changes to the Evidence Act were included in Practice Directions issued by the Chief Justice and the Chief Judge.

The direction in s 21AW of the Evidence Act also is referred to at point 10.1 and 10.2 of the Queensland Supreme Court and District Court Benchbook.

Section 21AW provides for fair trials by informing juries that there is no difference between a witness giving evidence by videotape and giving the evidence personally in court. It does not infer guilt on the part of the defendant.

Media inquiries: Paul Childs, Attorney-General’s office, on 0407 131 654.