A gun and two scraps of paper (saying ‘Sean rules’) were found along the route of a road passed by a car with which the prosecution sought to link the defendant (Sean Lydon). The documents and the gun could themselves be linked forensically.
Held: They were admissible evidence to corroborate a disputed identification connecting the defendant to the car and thus to a robbery, but not to prove that Sean did indeed rule. The court explained: ‘Sometimes it is possible to avoid the hearsay rule by showing that a statement made in a document is being used as an original and independent fact for instance, that a person who made use of the document had certain information in his possession at a relevant time – and not as evidence of the facts stated. It is always important therefore, whenever an objection is taken on hearsay grounds, to ascertain for precisely what purpose the evidence is being tendered. It may be hearsay for one purpose and not, and therefore admissible, for another,’ per Cox J in R v. Romeo (1982) 30 SASR 243 at 262.
‘In these cases it seems that the writing when properly admissible at all, is relevant not as an assertion of the state of facts but as itself a fact which affords circumstantial evidence upon the basis of which the jury may draw an inference from any other relevant circumstance of the case’ Cross on Evidence, 6th ed, at 464.
Woolf LJ
(1987) 85 Cr App R 221
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Owens and Another, Regina v CACD 6-Sep-2006
The defendants appealed convictions and sentence (6 and 4 years) for conspiracy to sell red diesel as ‘DERV’ and for money laundering of the proceeds of the crime. The sums involved exceeded andpound;1.4m. They said that documents should not have . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Updated: 28 August 2021; Ref: scu.245164
