New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments | LexChat

Topic

Veracity rules

Legal area

Court

29 Nov 2016

M (CA401/2016) v R [2016] NZCA 562

Citation

[2016] NZCA 562
Court

Court of Appeal

The Court held the proposed evidence was inadmissible under s37 because the alleged prior complaint against a different, younger non-family alleged perpetrator was materially dissimilar in nature, context and chronology, rested solely on the witness E, and involved only one alleged prior complaint not made to authority, so it was not substantially helpful to assess the complainant's veracity in relation to the charges against the appellant.
27 Nov 2009

WI V R SC 28/2009

Citation

SC 28/2009
Court

Supreme Court

Evidence that a defendant has no, or no relevant, previous convictions is not admissible as veracity evidence because it fails the 'substantially helpful' test in s37; however it is admissible as propensity (good character) evidence under s40 and s7 because it has at least a slight tendency to show lack of propensity to commit the offence; in the present case exclusion of the evidence was harmless and did not cause a miscarriage of justice, so the appeal is dismissed.