Dear Shadow Minister,

You say; “The high court judges did not describe witness J as credible, that is a step beyond being "compelling" Note conmen are compelling but not credible not that I am calling witness J a conman.”

No the High Court were very clear;

“"It may be accepted that the Court of Appeal majority did not err in holding that A's evidence of the first incident did not contain discrepancies, or display inadequacies, of such a character as to require the jury to have entertained a doubt as to guilt.”

That old salt is says his testimony was 'beyond a shadow of a doubt'. Hardly an assessment of not credible from them was it.

Foxy,

You are right, what you and I and your left leaning academics think, the 7 most respected legal minds unanimously found that the verdict was incorrect.

To quote the court of appeal thank to SR
"In the past, in cases of alleged sexual abuse, juries were warned, in strong terms, of the dangers of convicting in the absence of corroboration. The law has changed in that regard. That makes the task of intermediate appellate courts charged with having to review the safety of convictions in such cases a particularly important and onerous one"

In a stroke SR has confirmed my original reasons for believing that a guilty verdict beyond reasonable doubt was not viable, and that the Victorian government have changed the law in such a way that basic justice is damaged.

SR,

Thanks for confirming that the high court did not describe witness J as credible. Credible has a particular meaning in legal cases which J's uncorroborated testimony could not meet.

Dear Shadow Minister,

The High Court did not attribute the word credible to the other witnesses either. However it was only the victim's testimony that they said "that A's evidence of the first incident did not contain discrepancies, or display inadequacies, of such a character as to require the jury to have entertained a doubt as to guilt.”

There was no such praise for any of the other witnesses. The argument was that collectively their testimonies raised sufficient doubt. That is it.

SR,

A witness's testimony can be both flawless and completely fabricated, compelling but not credible. This discrepancy is where conmen flourish.

I am not claiming that witness J is lying, but that if he was there would be no way to tell and why involved solo witnesses without corroboration are not considered sufficient to convict.