Our client was charged with very serious offences, including aggravated sexual assault and intentionally choking a person without consent, alleged to have occurred in the family home against his partner. The police brief included three recorded interviews with the complainant. From day one, our client denied the allegations and said any contact was consensual.
After a line by line review of those interviews, and checks against other material, we found real inconsistencies on key points: who initiated physical contact; the order and timing of events; and what was said immediately before and after the alleged incident. These were not slips of language; they changed the timeline in ways that mattered to consent and reliability. We built a tight chronology, cross referencing the transcripts with metadata and third party records, and set out how these issues would likely play out at trial and affect the Crown’s prospects.
We then put our analysis into focused written representations to the Office of the Director of Public Prosecutions. We addressed the reliability problems, the risk of unfair prejudice if a jury heard conflicting versions of critical moments, and how the inconsistencies intersected with directions on proof and reasonable doubt. After the ODPP’s review, the most serious charges were withdrawn in the Local Court. Our client pleaded guilty to less serious domestic violence offences and was sentenced in the Local Court to good behaviour bonds. The outcome removed the risk of a jail term.
This outcome highlights an important lesson: meticulous scrutiny of a complainant’s interviews, tested against objective timelines and collateral material, can be decisive. When inconsistencies go to the heart of the allegation, a clear, evidence led chronology and targeted submissions to the ODPP can narrow a case dramatically, including the withdrawal of the gravest counts where the evidence does not meet the mark.