Regina -v- Booth and Jones; 1910

Channell J said: ‘the moment you have decided to charge him and practically got him into custody, then, inasmuch as a judge even cannot ask a question or a magistrate, it is ridiculous to suppose that a policeman can. But there is no actual authority yet that if a policeman does ask a question it is inadmissible; what happens is that the judge says it is not advisable to press the matter.’ (approved on appeal)

Date: 01-Jan-1910
Judges: Channell J
References: (1910) 5 Criminal Appeal Reports 179
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Regina -v- Best; CCA 1909

Referring to the admissibility of answers to questions put before an arrest, ‘it is quite impossible to say that the fact that a question of this kind has been asked invalidates the trial’.

Court: CCA
Date: 01-Jan-1909
Judges: Channell, J
References: (1909) 1 KBD 692,
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Ex parte Macrea; PC 1893

The Board cannot give leave to appeal where the grounds suggested could not sustain the appeal itself; nor can it allow an appeal on grounds that would not have sufficed for the grant of permission to bring it. Misdirection, as such, even irregularity as such, will not suffice.

Court: PC
Date: 01-Jan-1893
References: (1893) AC 346,
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Riel

The Board (PC) has repeatedly treated applications for leave to appeal and the hearing of criminal appeals as being upon the same footing.

Court: PC
Date: 01-Jan-1892
References: (1892) AC 422,
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Regina -v- Knight and Thayre; 1905

Statements were rejected, because they had been obtained from the accused before arrest by means of a long interrogation by a person in authority over him. The court adverted thus to the case of questions put by a constable after arresting:- ‘when he has taken anyone into custody . . he ought not to question the prisoner . . I am not aware of any distinct rule of evidence that, if such improper questions are asked, the answers to them are inadmissible, but there is clear authority for saying that the judge at the trial may in his discretion refuse to allow the answers to be given in evidence.’

Date: 01-Jan-1905
Judges: Channell, J
References: (1905) 20 Cox 711,
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Regina -v- Gavin; 1888

The court excluded a statement made to a constable, who questioned his prisoner in a way that amounted to cross-examination. A constable has no right to ask questions without expressly saying that the answers cannot be relevant evidence.

Date: 01-Jan-1888
Judges: A.L. Smith, J
References: (1888) (15 Cox 656),
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Regina -v- Male; 1893

The court rejected a statement made by a prisoner in custody to a constable who had cross-examined him, saying merely that the police have no right to manufacture evidence.

Date: 01-Jan-1893
Judges: Cave, J
References: (1893) 17 Cox 689,
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Regina -v- Histed; 1898

The court excluded the answers of a prisoner in custody, on the authority of R. v. Gavin, saying that the constable was entrapping the prisoner and trying by a trick to set a broken-down case on its legs again.

Date: 01-Jan-1898
Judges: Hawkins, J.
References: (1898) 19 Cox 16,
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Rogers -v- Hawken; QBD 1894

(Year unknown) In a case of the admissibility of questions put before arrest, the Divisional Court, (judges not prone to lean against a prisoner)
Held: The statement was admissible and observed that ‘R. v. Male must not be taken as laying down that a statement of the accused to a police constable without threat or inducement is not admissible. There is no rule of law excluding statements made in such circumstances’.

Court: QBD
Date: 01-Jan-1894
Judges: Russell, LCJ and Mathew J
References: [1894] 67 LJ QB 526,
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Regina -v- Baldry; 1900

(Year?) ‘by the law of England, in order to render a confession admissible in evidence, it must be perfectly voluntary and there is no doubt that any inducement in the nature of a promise or of a threat held out by a person in authority vitiates a confession. The decisions to that effect have gone a long way: whether it would not have been better to have allowed the whole to go to the jury it is now too late to inquire, but I think there has been too much tenderness towards prisoners in this matter. I confess that I cannot look at the decisions without some shame, when I consider what objections have prevailed to prevent the reception of confessions in evidence … justice and commonsense have too frequently been sacrificed at the shrine of mercy’

Date: 01-Jan-1900
Judges: Parke B
References: 2 Den CC 430,
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