High Court Registry closure

The High Court Registry will be closed from 4:00pm AEDT on Wednesday, 24 December 2025 and will re-open at 9:00am on Friday, 2 January 2026.

Any party seeking to file a document due to be filed between 25 December 2025 and 1 January 2026 has an automatic extension of time under the High Court Rules 2004 (Rule 4.01.5) until 4:00pm on Friday, 2 January 2026 to file the document. Any documents lodged between 25 December 2025 and 1 January 2026 will be reviewed on 2 January 2026.

All inquiries for the High Court will be considered when the Registry re-opens on Friday, 2 January 2026. If a matter is of extreme urgency, you may telephone 1800 570 566, select Option 1 and leave a voicemail. In addition, provide details by email to: registry@hcourt.gov.au.

Fennell v The Queen

[2019] HCA 37
Judgment date
Case number
B20/2019
Before
Kiefel CJ, Keane, Nettle, Gordon, Edelman JJ
Catchwords

Criminal law – Murder – Appeal – Appeal against conviction – Where appellant convicted by jury – Where Crown case based entirely on circumstantial evidence – Where circumstantial evidence related to opportunity and motive and miscellany of other inculpatory matters – Where evidence of opportunity and motive extremely weak – Where evidence connecting accused to alleged murder weapon based on glaringly improbable identification evidence – Whether verdict unreasonable or cannot be supported having regard to evidence.

Words and phrases – "basis for an inference", "circumstantial case", "contamination of recollection", "credibility and reliability", "glaringly improbable", "identification evidence", "identification of object", "motive", "murder weapon", "opportunity", "unreasonable verdict".

Criminal Code (Qld) – s 668E(1).

Files
37.rtf (498.75 KB)
37.pdf (273.44 KB)