Australia, June 12 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on May 13:

1. HIS HONOUR: Before the Court is an application for bail by Troy Xerri who is 33 years of age. He has been charged with break and enter dwelling and inflict grievous bodily harm, assault intending criminal activity of a criminal group, take and detain in company with intent to obtain advantage, occasioning actual bodily harm and cause grievous bodily harm to a person with intent.

2. In essence, these are very serious offences which involve assault causing damage, whether it is grievous or otherwise, and kidnapping.

3. The seriousness of the offences in two cases are such that the provisions of s 16B of the Bail Act 2013 (NSW) ("the Act") require, pursuant to s 16A of the Act, the applicant to show cause why his continued detention is unjustified, generally referred to as the show cause provision. Otherwise, and assuming without yet deciding that cause can be shown, the applicant is required to be assessed as to the applicant's risks in the four areas of bail concerns under s 17 of the Act, taking into account the provisions and criteria in s 18 of the Act in order to determine, pursuant to s 19 of the Act, whether the applicant poses an unacceptable risk on conditional liberty.

4. It has been said that the two issues of show cause and the assessment of unacceptability of risk are two separate issues, the first of which to be dealt with in time is the show cause provision. While I accept and agree with that proposition, it is sometimes a little artificial.

5. The applicant is capable of showing cause either by a combination of factors which are prescribed by s 18 of the Act or by matters that are extrinsic to the criteria prescribed in s 18, or by a combination of prescribed and not otherwise prescribed criteria. In other words, the Court is at large in determining that which is relevant to and capable of determining whether cause has been shown.

6. n the current case, the applicant comes before the Court and seeks to show cause by a number of factors. First, the applicant relies upon what they say are weaknesses in the prosecution case. The case, it is said, is circumstantial. In and of itself, that does not make the Crown case weak.

7. Nevertheless, much of the Crown case depends upon identification evidence through CCTV footage. The footage that the Court has seen, although I do not know whether that is the ultimate footage that will be relied upon by the Crown at trial, if there be a trial, is not such that the Court would say the Crown case is strong on that basis alone. There is also fingerprint or forensic evidence, but that is confined to a single fingerprint, I am told, on the exterior of a vehicle which is a vehicle relevant to the offences in question.

8. The second aspect is that there are significant and quite exceptional, although one does not need to show exceptional causes, reasons why the applicant needs to be at liberty. The Court has before it affidavit evidence, including medical certificates, going to the health issues associated with the applicant's children, one in particular, who are four, one and six months of age, and of his wife.

9. The Court has had regard to those factors. It is unnecessary to record them in the judgment, but they are significantly serious and, in the view of the Court, require the attendance of the applicant and are, together with other factors, sufficient to show cause as to why his continued detention is unjustified.

10. The other factors are the delay that is necessarily going to occur in relation to the finalisation of the matters and the strength of the Crown case, which I have to say does provide some concerns.

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/1971f7425221c3a1ad9bd6a7)

Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.