The court considered the rule excluding evidence of the defendant’s bad character. Kennedy J said: ‘The general rule cannot be applied where the facts which constitute distinct offences are at the same time part of the transaction which is the subject of the indictment. Evidence is necessarily admissible as to acts which are so closely and inextricably mixed up with the history of the guilty act itself as to form part of one chain of relevant circumstances, and so could not be excluded in the presentation of the case before the jury without the evidence being thereby rendered unintelligible.’ The court gave examples of trials for murder or wounding, where evidence is given to show prior assaults by the accused on the victim, or menaces or threats uttered to him.
Judges:
Kennedy J
Citations:
[1906] 2 KB 389
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Regina v Beedles CACD 31-Jul-1996
The defendant appealed against his conviction for sexual assault. The issue was whether a note written by the complainant to her teacher was admissible as evidence of recent complaint to corroborate her statement. Similar allegations had been made . .
Cited – Regina v Wright and Ormerod CACD 1990
The defendants were charged with indecent assault on a child of 5, who said that the defendants had hurt her in the back and said naughty things to her. The Judge also admitted evidence from the child’s mother of the complaint the child had made to . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Criminal Evidence
Updated: 13 May 2022; Ref: scu.225388