Your honour, my Dylan Chong. I am appearing on behalf of the defense.

We
will show that Emelia Danders is innocent. To be found guilty in Western
Australia the jury must be sure beyond reasonable doubt. The defense does
not need to prove to you that Emelia Danders is innocent. In our legal system
you are innocent until proven guilty beyond reasonable doubt.

In a court of law there are some important roles which I will now explain.
The role of the jury in this case is to give verdict based on the evidence
submitted by witnesses in the court. The role of the judge in this case is to
oversee the trial and interpret the evidence and law to make a decision, then
handing down a sentence.
The prosecution will try to convince you that the defendant is guilty beyond
reasonable doubt, however I as the defense will show doubt on the evidence,
and prove Emelia Danders is innocent.

Now I am going to tell you the series of events across the 17 th of May to the
20th of May, proving Ms. Danders’ inability to have knowingly had the quokka
in her possession.
Joe Burl and Emelia Danders went to the zoo at 9:00am on the 17 th of May,
going on the Australia Bushwalk exhibit first, seeing various Australian animals.
Shortly after they passed by the quokkas. Emelia Danders left Joe Burl to put
their rubbish in the bin, I believe that Joe Burl took the opportunity to take
Queenie (the quokka) and put him in Joe’s cooler bag.
According to section 371 of the Western Australia Criminal Code Act, every
tame animal, whether tame by nature or wild by nature and tamed, which is in
the property of any person, is capable of being stolen. Therefore, this act is
considered stealing because Joe Burl took a quokka which was tamed and
owned by the zoo.
After leaving the zoo and arriving back at Emelia Danders’ house at 3:30pm,
Joe Burl asked to use Emelia’s toilet. I believe he used this opportunity to hide
the quokka inside Emelia’s bedroom wardrobe while Emelia was outside
tending to her garden, unaware of what happened.
In section 414 of the West Australian Criminal Code Act 1913, In order to prove
the accused is guilty of the offence set out in the section, The prosecution
needs to prove property was obtained by means of an act constituting to
stealing/thievery, the property was received by the accused (Ms. Danders),
and the accused knew the property was obtained by means of
stealing/thievery.

The other side of this case may argue that because of Felicia Isnail’s witness,
Emelia must have known because of the quokka’s noises. However, I’d say this
is wrong, because quokka’s very uncommonly make any noise at all, far so
from a house away.
There are well suspicious facts that only one person in the whole
neighborhood heard this, and only reported and stated one time she heard the
noises in the time span of about 4 days.

Therefore, I will sum up to you, the jury, to show you that Emelia Danders is
quite innocent of this charge. I will now call my first witness.