AUSTRALIA
7 News
By Annette Blackwell – AAP on March 18, 2016
The pendulum of public awareness about child sexual abuse has swung so far in one direction that those accused of abuse are in danger of not getting a fair trial, a senior defence lawyer says.
Peter Morrissey SC, who is head of the Criminal Bar Association in Victoria, told the child sex abuse commission on Friday it needed to be extremely cautious about recommending changes to rules of evidence when it came to abuse trials.
Mr Morrissey was on a panel giving evidence to the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse, which is exploring if changes need to be made with regard to the admissibility of evidence about the character and past conduct of defendants.
Courts usually take a cautious approach to admitting such evidence because of the danger of prejudicing jury decisions.
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