What is the test for determining the credibility of a witness in a sexual assault case?

British Columbia, Canada


The following excerpt is from WCAT-2009-02069 (Re), 2009 CanLII 76877 (BC WCAT):

I must consider the worker’s statements as evidence relating to matters that would be within his knowledge, but I must also consider the weight to be given to that evidence in light of other evidence and the internal consistency and strength of the worker’s evidence. I appreciate that individual recall is subject to the vagaries of memory and the nature of the interest a person might have in the subject matter. Nevertheless, I must determine the reliability of the worker’s evidence, which I will do by applying the test articulated in Faryna v. Chorny[1]: The credibility of interested witnesses, particularly in cases of conflict of evidence, cannot be gauged solely by the test of whether the personal demeanour 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 and in those conditions.

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