Report and Recommendations - Scottish Government

7.2.26 Some other common law jurisdictions also continue to allow warnings to begiven if justified in the circumstances. On the other hand, in Australia andCanada, judges are specifically prohibited in sexual offence cases fromwarning juries of the dangers of convicting an accused on the basis of theuncorroborated evidence of the complainer 54 . Otherwise, where theprosecution is relying on a single witness, the judge may warn the jury toscrutinise the evidence of that witness with great care 55 .7.2.27 The position in Ireland is similar to that in England and Wales and othercommon law jurisdictions. McGrath explains that the drawback of acorroboration requirement in certain categories of case was thought to bethat 56 :“it had the potential to lead to unmeritorious acquittals incircumstances where the evidence of a potentially unreliable witnesswas considered to be reliable in the particular case by the tribunal offact but no corroborative evidence could be adduced”.In emphasising that the common law eschews any quantitative requirements infavour of qualitative assessments, he quotes from Weiller v United Stateswhere Black J said 57 :“Our system of justice rests on the general assumption that the truth isnot to be determined merely by the number of witnesses on each sideof a controversy. In gauging the truth of conflicting evidence, a juryhas no simple formulation of weights and measures upon which to rely.The touchstone is always credibility; the ultimate measure oftestimonial worth is quality and not quantity. Triers of fact in our fact-54 Australia’s Criminal Procedure Act 1986 s 294AA; Canada: Criminal Code RSC 1985 s 27455 this is referred to as a “Murray” direction, R v Murray (1987) 11 NSWLR 1256 McGrath: Evidence para 4-0257 (1945) 323 US 606 at 608271