New Zealand Case Law: Decisions & Judgments | LexChat

New Zealand Case Law

Reliability of identification
  • 17 Jul 2017

    CRICHTON v R [2017] NZCA 301

    Citation
    [2017] NZCA 301
    Court
    Court of Appeal

    Because the police failed to follow a formal identification procedure without good reason and the Crown did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that the circumstances in which the complainant made his identification produced a reliable identification (given delay, witness condition, poor quality/leading CCTV presentation, risk of taint from an apology and emphasis on clothing), the visual identification evidence from July 2016 onwards was inadmissible under s45(2) Evidence Act 2006; a trial judge must confine the s45(2) inquiry to the circumstances of the identification and may not rely on inde…