The appellant appealed convictions for aggravated assault and assault with a weapon stemming from two separate incidents.
The appeal challenged the trial judge's assessment of unsavoury witnesses under Vetrovec principles and the use of "prefer" language in evaluating witness credibility.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that the trial judge properly applied Vetrovec by seeking corroboration and that the use of "prefer" was a linguistic slip, not a misapprehension of the burden of proof, given the overall context of the reasons and the trial judge's self-direction on the standard of proof.
