Propensity evidence — late filing of application — Evidence Act 2006, ss 9, 40 & 43 — Criminal Procedure Act 2011. The defendant faced a charge of stealing from her employer. She was alleged to have stolen $82,367 in cash from her employer's safe and staged a break-in to cover up her theft. The prosecutor made an application to admit as propensity evidence her 2006 conviction on using a document for pecuniary advantage. That offending had also arisen during her employment. As a retail assistant she had created a series of false refund chits and had the refunded money paid into her partner's bank account. The defendant argued that the application should be refused because it had been filed out of time according to the Criminal Procedure Act. The prosecutor acknowledged that the application was out of time and explained that the delay was because the matter had been transferred to a new prosecutor, and the earlier prosecutors had not realised the need for the application. The Court found that this did not excuse the failure to file the application in time and dismissed the application. In case it was wrong to dismiss the application, the Court reviewed the merits of the application. The Court found that the two sets of offending were not closely connected in time (there was a gap of about ten years) and that they were not particularly similar. The only real similarity was that they both occurred in the course of employment. To introduce the previous offending as propensity evidence would have little probative value and would significantly prejudice the defendant. The Court found that the previous convictions did not qualify as propensity evidence. Judgment Date: 4 February 2019. ***Note: names have been changed to meet legal requirements.***