What is the current state of the law on credibility of witnesses in a sexual assault case?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from K.B. v. J.B., 2015 BCSC 2217 (CanLII):

In weighing questions of credibility, courts will also frequently rely on the guidance provided by O’Halloran J.A. in Farnya v. Chorny, 1951 CanLII 252 (BC CA), [1952] 2 D.L.R. 354 (BCCA) where he said, at 357: The credibility of interested witnesses, particularly in cases of conflict of evidence, cannot be gauged solely by the test of whether the personal demeanor of the particular witness carried conviction of the truth. The test must reasonably subject his story to an examination of its consistency with the probabilities that surround the currently existing conditions. In short, the real test of the truth of the story of a witness in such a case must be its harmony with the preponderance of the probabilities which a practical and informed person would readily recognize as reasonable in that place in those conditions.

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