The NSW Court of Appeal has ruled that there is scope for defendants, in the context of historic child sexual abuse claims, to apply to permanently stay proceedings on the basis of inability to obtain a fair trial, even though such claims are no longer statute barred under the Limitation Act 1969 (NSW). The circumstances in which the defendant cannot receive a fair trial will be decided on a case-by-case basis, with the onus on the defendant to establish that it cannot receive a fair trial.

Wotton + Kearney’s Sean O’Connor and Patrick Thompson review the implications of the decision in Moubarak by his tutor Coorey v Holt [2019] NSWCA 102.

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