The court considered the admission of bad character evidence under the 2003 Act which was not clear. Rix LJ said: ‘In our judgment, however, the words of the statute ‘has to deal with’ are words of prima facie broad application, albeit constituting a phrase that has to be construed in the overall context of the bad character provisions of the 2003 Act. Thus the breadth of the words are clearly limited by the context for instance of section 101(1)(c) ‘s reference to important explanatory evidence, and gateway (d)’s more general reference to important matter in issue, which taken together with section 103 relates to propensity and previous convictions. In our judgment, it would be a sufficient working model of these words if one said that they either clearly encompass evidence relating to the alleged facts of an offence which would have been admissible under the common law outside the context of bad character or propensity, even before the Act, or alternatively as embracing anything directly relevant to the offence charged, provided at any rate they were reasonably contemporaneous with and closely associated with its alleged facts (see for instance the reference to R v Machado noted towards the end of Archbold 13-6). ‘
Judges:
Rix LJ
Citations:
[2007] EWCA Crim 2927
Links:
Statutes:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Lunkulu and Others v Regina CACD 7-Aug-2015
Request for leave to appeal out of time against convictions for murder and against sentence. Much evidence had been circumstantial, and the defendants alleged bias in the summing up, and complained of the admission of bad character evidence.
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Evidence
Updated: 12 July 2022; Ref: scu.263816