The appellant appealed a sexual assault conviction arising from allegations that he groomed and sexually assaulted a teenage complainant while acting as her de facto guardian.
He argued that the trial judge applied uneven scrutiny, made factual findings unsupported by the record, and improperly relied on an absence of motive to lie in assessing credibility.
The appeal court held that, although one aspect of the trial judge's reasoning appeared to reflect stereotype and had little foundation in the evidence, it played little role in the overall credibility assessment.
Reading the reasons as a whole, the trial judge properly rejected the alibi evidence, considered whether the defence evidence nonetheless raised a reasonable doubt, and permissibly treated the absence of evidence of animus as one factor in assessing credibility.
The conviction appeal was dismissed.
