Respectfully, it sort of is proof.
Right
Unfortunately the process of drawing legal inferences is frequently misunderstood in trials so perhaps it is worth restating briefly here.
Inference is the process by which additional conclusions are reached even though they were not directly established by evidence at trial.
As in any case, our jury has a number of forensic and other evidence points to review. This is the circumstantial evidence.
So the jury must ask itself whether it accepts that someone created and deleted the lower case cheques on the McStay computer on the night of the 4th. Let's also say for arguments sake that the jury accepts that on other occasions before and after the 4th, someone created and deleted similar cheques, and cashed/deposited them, not from the McStays computer.
At this point a Jury is required to draw logical and natural inferences from these data points. Some of these inferences are so obvious, that the jury may not even realise it is establishing additional facts directly from the trial evidence.
For example, because there is evidence Chase was in possession of some of the fraudulent cheques, the jury may infer that it was Chase who created them. This is hardly controversial. And it becomes another established fact - proven via irresistible inference.
Therefore because of this inference, the jury may further infer that it was Chase who created the cheques on 4 February. He created all the others ones so it is highly likely he created these ones as well.
This would then become another fact, established via the process of legal inference.
It's the same with the video of the truck. If the jury accepts it's chase truck, the jury will automatically infer Chase was driving it despite there being no direct evidence of that fact.
The jury must directly confront the implications of the evidence. It cannot throw it's arms in the air and say 'there is no proof of who was driving"
