Defendant’s Hearsay Evidence which Exculpates One Co-defendant by Incriminating Another
| DOI | 10.1177/0022018315579586 |
| Published date | 01 April 2015 |
| Date | 01 April 2015 |
| Subject Matter | Court of Appeal |
2015, Vol. 79(2) 81–89
Court of Appeal
ª The Author(s) 2015
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DOI: 10.1177/0022018315579586
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Defendant’s Hearsay Evidence which Exculpates One Co-defendant
by Incriminating Another
R v Sliogeris [2015] EWCA Crim 22
Keywords
Admissibility, confessions, hearsay, inclusionary discretion
KS, the appellant, was convicted of the murder of PJ. PJ had died from internal bleeding to the brain,
resulting from a brutal attack during which PJ had sustained numerous injuries. The Crown alleged that
four co-defendants, KS, AP, SJ and MS, had been jointly responsible for PJ’s murder. A witness, RP, had
seen a man on the floor of KS’s flat who was bleeding from his face and had seen that KS, AP and MS
were present. KS asserted that MS had had a fight with PJ whereas MS asserted that he had been asleep,
intoxicated. KS and MS each alleged that the other was solely responsible for the violence on PJ. The
other two co-defendants, AP and SJ, claimed that they had not been present.
The Crown’s case against KS was based on circumstantial evidence. Telephone records showed that
KS had probably been in contact with PJ a few days before the murder whereas KS had attempted to
distance himself from association with PJ. KS had not acted as an innocent man might have been
expected to do when RP arrived at his house. He was older than the other three defendants and they
looked up to him. There were injuries to KS’s hands and face, for which he only provided an innocent
explanation for the first time at his trial. PJ’s blood was on KS’s slippers and the imprint of their sole was
on PJ’s head (the Crown suggested that the innocent explanation that KS gave for this for the first time at
his trial was a recent fabrication). KS had telephoned RP and a third party on the evening of the murder
but had not blamed MS for the attack on PJ and, contrary to RP’s suggestion, he had not called an ambu-
lance. KS’s activities on the weekend following the murder suggested that he intended to return to
Lithuania with MS. KS had allegedly lied throughout his police interviews.
KS’s appeal concerned a statement that AP had allegedly made to his landlord, RM. RM told the police
that AP had told him that he had seen KS beat a man to death. When RM gave evidence he said that AP had
told him that KS had been present when a man was attacked but had not said that KS was the attacker. When
cross-examined on his police statement by MS’s counsel, RM’s ambiguous answer arguably confirmed his
police statement. MS, who could not be compelled to testify because he was a co-defendant, chose not to give
evidence. The judge admitted RM’s police statement as evidence for MS, the judge ruling that this hearsay
evidence was admissible both under s. 76A of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) and under
s. 114(1)(d) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (CJA 2003). Section 76A of PACE provides that:
(1) In any proceedings a confession made by an accused person may be given in evidence for another person
charged in the same proceedings (a co-accused) in so far as it is relevant to any matter in issue in the proceed-
ings and is not excluded by the court in pursuance of this section.
So far as the definition of a confession for the purposes of s. 76A is concerned, s. 82(1) of PACE provides
that: ‘‘‘confession’’, includes any statement wholly or partly adverse to the person who made it, whether
made to a person in authority or not and whether made in words or otherwise’.
82
The Journal of Criminal Law 79(2)
Section 114(1)(d) of the CJA 2003 provides that:
(1) In criminal proceedings a statement not made in oral evidence in the proceedings is admissible as evi-
dence of any matter stated if, but only if . . .
(d) the court is satisfied that it is in the interests of justice for it to be admissible.
When deciding whether to admit hearsay under s. 114(1)(d), s. 114(2) requires the court (in addition to
any other relevant factors) to ‘have regard to’:
(a) how much probative value the statement has (assuming it to be true) in relation to a matter in issue in the
proceedings, or how valuable it is for the understanding of other evidence in the case;
(b) what other evidence has...
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