CRIMINAL LAW CONSOLIDATION ACT 1935 - SECT 57A
CRIMINAL LAW CONSOLIDATION ACT 1935 - SECT 57A
57A—Power to take plea without evidence
(1) When a person is
charged with sexual intercourse with, or an indecent assault upon, a person
under the age of seventeen years, the justice sitting to conduct the
preliminary examination of the witnesses may, without taking any evidence,
accept a plea of guilty and commit the defendant to gaol, or admit him to
bail, to appear for sentence.
(2) The justice shall
take written notes of any facts stated by the prosecutor as the basis of the
charge and of any statement made by the defendant in contradiction or
explanation of the facts stated by the prosecutor and shall forward those
notes to the Director of Public Prosecutions together with any proofs of
witnesses tendered by the prosecutor to the justice.
(3) The Director of
Public Prosecutions shall cause the notes and proofs of witnesses to be
delivered to the proper officer of the court at which the defendant is to
appear for sentence before or at the opening of the court on the first sitting
thereof or at such other time as the judge who is to preside in the court may
order.
(4) This section does
not restrict or take away any right of the defendant to withdraw a plea of
guilty and substitute a plea of not guilty.