Where the admission of hearsay evidence of a person who had died was sought under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 s.116(2)(a), in the proviso in s.116(5), that if the circumstances (namely that person’s death) were caused “(a) by the person in support of whose case it is sought to give the statement…” [then the evidence […]
A conviction for sexual assault was safe, even though a central piece of evidence for the prosecution was the hearsay statement of the two-and-a-half-year-old victim. The statement had properly been admitted under the Criminal Justice (Evidence) (Northern Ireland) Order 2004 art.18(1)(d) and the judge had given appropriate directions to the jury about how it was […]
Although part of prosecuting counsel’s cross-examination of a rape defendant, related to bad character and based on inadmissible hearsay evidence, had been misjudged and regrettable, it had not affected the overall fairness of the proceedings or the safety of the verdict.
A Crown Court judge presiding over a retrial had been wrong to designate a pre-trial hearing as a preparatory hearing, and so the Court of Appeal lacked jurisdiction to hear the defendants’ interlocutory appeal against his ruling that the complainant’s police interview and cross-examination at the original trial could be admitted as hearsay evidence at […]
Convictions for rape and indecent assault were quashed where the Crown’s reliance on hearsay evidence of bad character in the form of statements containing allegations of rape had circumvented the restrictions on hearsay evidence in the Criminal Justice Act 2003.
The appellant’s convictions for indecent assaults against young girls over 30 years ago were safe. His sentence would be reduced from seven years to four and a half years as these were not the most serious offences of their kind.
