Review: Criminal Evidence & Procedure: The Essential Framework
| Author | Jeffrey Lamb |
| Published date | 01 December 2000 |
| Date | 01 December 2000 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/136571270000400406 |
| Subject Matter | Review |
REVIEW
Stephen Seabrooke and John Sprack
CRIMINAL EVIDENCE
&
PROCEDURE:
THE
ESSENTIAL FRAMEWORK
London: Blackstone Press, 2nd edition (1999)
500
pp,
pb,
€24.95
This book, as its full title suggests, is split into
two
distinct sections. It
concerns itself, first, with criminal evidence and then with criminal
procedure. It is only when one reaches the second section that one realises
that the perceived audience for the
book
is the host of trainee solicitors and
barristers who are bent on becoming criminal advocates. Part
A
is a fine
adumbration
of
all the points
of
criminal evidence which are likely to arise in
a trial situation. However, it soon becomes clear that the analysis and
commentary on those many points are quite elementary.
A
book such as this
does not, perhaps intentionally, realistically compete with such specialised
studies as
Cross
and
Tapper.
Keane
or
Phipson.
The problem for any author writing a book on the subject of evidence is that,
almost before the ink is dry on the final version, the law is likely to have
changed, or to have altered
so
significantly as to nullify many of the writer's
analyses. The authors of this volume-both of whom taught the topic to
students at the Inns of Court School of Law-are clearly aware of such a
problem and have made some allowances for it. Unfortunately, the thrust
of
the arguments for and against the various aspects of the law of evidence is
somewhat muted by persistent references to the law (be it case law
or
statute)
being about to change.
The Preface records that the authors have attempted to state the law as at
27
July
1999.
However, there is constant reference to the introduction of the
Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act
1999
altering slightly or changing
completely the way the law stood at the date of writing. As the Act was
introduced almost in its entirety on
1
April
2000.
one cannot help wondering
why the publishers did not wait that extra nine months
so
as to produce a
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