ENGLISH PRISON LAW

Hearsay evidence from other prisoners Hearsay evidence is allowed against prisoners extradited to other countries as in the case In Re Levin, (on appeal from a Divisional Court of the Queen's Bench Division) on 19 June 1997, when the House of Lords said that the accomplice’s evidence is a matter, which can be raised at trial, when the facts about his position can be fully ascertained. Computer printout evidence is admissible at common law and its weight is a matter for the tribunal of fact. Today, Section 114 of the CJA 2003 is now available to both parties and it can provide the defence with opportunities to admit evidence that would previously have been inadmissible. In R v McLean the court was concerned with a fatal stabbing alleged to have been committed by McLean and three others as part of a joint enterprise. One of the co-accused made a statement to a prison officer that one of the other accused had stabbed the victim and put the blame for the offence on him. The Crown did not seek to adduce this evidence as it was informally obtained and would have been excluded. However, McLean and the defendant who had made the statement applied to have it admitted. The trial judge refused to admit it. In the Court of Appeal it was conceded that the statement was not a confession and could not be adduced under s 76A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984. What McLean wanted in evidence was not a confession by a co-accused but an out-of-court accusation by one of the co-accused against another. The application was based on s 114(1)(d) of the CJA 200 The decision of the trial judge was challenged on the basis that he had approached the question on a false basis. This position had now been changed by the 2003 Act . If it is admitted in the interests of justice, the jury is by law entitled to consider it, to determine its weight and to make up its mind whether it can, or cannot, rely on it. It becomes evidence in the case generally and not just against one defendant. In the event, the Court of Appeal ordered a retrial.