Noticeboard
| Date | 01 January 2018 |
| DOI | 10.1177/1365712717745401 |
| Published date | 01 January 2018 |
| Author | Jeremy Gans |
| Subject Matter | Noticeboard |
Noticeboard
Jeremy Gans
University of Melbourne, Australia
Law reform and source material
Child abuse—Australia
Royal Commission into Institutional Child Sexual Abuse, Criminal Justice, Report, August 2017,
available at <http://www.childabuseroyalcommission.gov.au/policy-and-research/our-policy-work/crim
inal-justice>
This report from an ad hoc government inquiry into institutional child sexual abuse contains the
Commission’s recommendations for reform of the criminal justice system. The lengthy report’s lengthy
Part VI addresses the rules on ‘tendency and coincidence evidence’ (better known as propensity, similar
fact and/or character evidence in other jurisdictions). In successive chapters, the report: outlines the
current law in Australian’s uniform evidence law jurisdictions; details the role those laws played in 10
case studies of institutional child sexual abuse prosecutions; describes the Commission’s research into
prejudice in jurors; outlines alternative approaches in England and Wales, Canada, New Zealand and the
United States; and details its consultations with various stakeholders. In the Part’s final chapter, the
Commission recommends:
reforming the law on tendency and coincidence evidence ‘to facilitate greater admissibility and
cross-admissibility of tendency and coincidence evidence and joint trials’
a model similar to England and Wales reforms to character evidence in 2003, but specific to
tendency and coincidence evidence about the defendant in a child sexual offence prosecution;
the abolition of common law rules on these topics;
that tendency and coincidence evidence should be assessed on the assumption that it is credible
and reliable, with issues of concoction, collusion and contamination irrelevant to admissibility;
that tendency and coincidence evidence not be required to be proved beyond reasonable doubt;
that evidence of prior convictions and charges (but not acquittals) be admissible on the above
basis.
An appendix to the report includes draft legislation, which includes providing that tendency and
coincidence evidence about the defendant in a child sexual abuse trial cannot otherwise be excluded on
the basis of unfair prejudice.
Further chapters in the report include recommendations about: the pre-recording of all evidence
(including cross-examination) from a child sexual abuse complainant (and other child or vulnerable
witnesses); the recording of all such testimony for use in later trials; intermediary schemes for child
Corresponding author:
Jeremy Gans, Melbourne Law School, University of Melbourne, 185 Pelham Street, Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria 3052, Australia.
E-mail: jeremy.gans@unimelb.edu.au
The International Journalof
Evidence & Proof
2018, Vol. 22(1) 85–86
ªThe Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/1365712717745401
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