Five defendants appealed against their convictions after the admission of hearsay evidence.
Held: The court re-iterated that the importance of the hearsay evidence to the case remained a vital consideration when deciding upon its admissibility, but there was no overarching rule that ‘sole or decisive’ evidence was inadmissible.
Hughes LJ VP set out the principles underlying the domestic jurisprudence: ‘As everybody knows, the Criminal Justice Act 2003 gave effect to the report of the Law Commission, itself the product of long consultation and deliberation. The common law prohibition on the admission of hearsay evidence remains the default rule but the categories of hearsay which may be admitted are widened. It is essential to remember that although hearsay is thereby made admissible in more circumstances than it previous was, this does not make it the same as first hand evidence. It is not. It is necessarily second hand and for that reason very often second best. Because it is second hand, it is that much more difficult to test and assess. The jury frequently never sees the person whose word is being relied upon. Even if there is a video recording of the witness’s interview, that person cannot be asked a single exploratory or challenging question about what it said. From the point of view of a defendant, the loss of the ability to confront one’s accusers is an important disadvantage. Those very real risks of hearsay evidence, which underlay the common law rule generally excluding it, remain critical to its management. Sometimes it is necessary in the interest of justice for it to be admitted. It may not suffer from the risks of unreliability which often attend such evidence, or its reliability can realistically be assessed. Equally, however, sometimes it is necessary in the interests of justice either that it should not be admitted at all, or that a trial depending upon it should not be allowed to proceed to the jury because any conviction would not be safe.’
Hughes LJ VP, Dobbs, Globe JJ
[2012] EWCA Crim 1509, [2013] Crim LR 60, [2013] 1 Cr App R 2, [2013] 1 WLR 2592, [2013] 1 All ER 349
Bailii
Criminal Justice Act 2003
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Horncastle and Others, Regina v SC 9-Dec-2009
Each defendant said they had not received a fair trial in that the court had admitted written evidence of a witness he had not been allowed to challenge. The witnesses had been victims, two of whom had died before trial. It was suggested that the . .
Cited by:
Cited – Adeojo and Another v Regina CACD 6-Feb-2013
The defendants appealed against their convictions for murder saying that the court should not have relied upon hearsay evidence. A witness had refused to give evidence, but his earlier evidnece was used.
Held: The appeals failed. The judge had . .
Cited – Taylor v Regina CACD 20-Dec-2013
The defendant appealed against his conviction, for sex offences some 33 years earlier, saying that the convictions had been unfairly obtained. Evidence had been available since 1980, but a decision not to prosecute had been taken.
Held: ‘the . .
Cited – Barnaby v The Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 6-Feb-2015
Admission of hearsay evidence
The defendant appealed by case stated against his conviction for assault. He said that certain evidence, a statement from the complainaint, and a recording of the 999 call, should not have been admitted as hearsay.
Held: Fulford LJ said: . .
Cited – Morgan v Director of Public Prosecutions Admn 6-Dec-2016
Res Gestae Evidence correctly admitted
The appellant challenged by case stated the admission by magistrates at his trial of two pieces of evidence under the res gestae principle under section 118(3) of the 2003 Act. The allegation was one of domestic violence. The court had admitted the . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Evidence
Updated: 04 December 2021; Ref: scu.464663
