The Appellant mother applied to adduce new evidence on her Appeal, pursuant to Rule 14.45. The new evidence she sought to adduce included a psychological report and details of her child’s rejection from a mental health program, to support her claims.

The Court reviewed the test to admit new evidence on appeal, considering the following: (i) the evidence should generally not be admitted if it could have been adduced at trial; (ii) the evidence must be relevant in the sense that it bears upon a decisive or potentially decisive issue in the trial; (iii) the evidence must be credible in the sense that it is reasonably capable of belief; and (iv) it must be such that if believed it could reasonably, when taken with the other evidence adduced at trial, be expected to have affected the result.

The mother attested that following a psychological report, the younger child was to attend a mental health program, but was rejected from that program as he did not meet the inclusion criteria, and he was waiting to get into a different program. She remained concerned that, in her opinion, it was “very likely that [the father] does not give [the younger child] his medication as prescribed”. The Court found that much of this evidence was the same as that before the Chambers Judge. It spoke to the ongoing, high-conflict parenting situation between the parents, which as quoted by the Chambers Judge, was having “devastating consequences on their children”.

None of the proposed new evidence was such that it would be expected to have affected the result in the Court below. The Chambers Judge considered the relief sought by the mother based on largely the same evidence then available. The new evidence Application was therefore dismissed.