Statutes: Criminal Evidence Act, 1965
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1468-2230.1965.tb02907.x |
| Author | Rupert Cross |
| Date | 01 September 1965 |
| Published date | 01 September 1965 |
STATUTES
CRIMINAL
EVIDENCE
Am,
1965
THE
threatened statutory reversal of the
Burmuh
Oil
case
’
and
Rookes
v.
Barnard
2
gave rise to much wailing and gnashing of
teeth; nothing of the sort is likely to follow upon the reversal by
the Criminal Evidence Act,
1965,
of
Myers
v.
Director o/
Public
Prosecutions.’’
In that case the House of Lords held that the
reception of manufacturers’ records compiled on information sup-
plied by workmen as evidence of the numbers on cylinder blocks
put into cars infringed the rule against hearsay, and the majority
of the House held that the records were not admissible by way
of
exception to the hearsay rule.
In words substantially borrowed from the Evidence Act,
1938,
which only applies to civil proceedings, section
1
(1)
of the new Act
provides that
“
In any criminal proceedings where direct oral evidence of a
fact would be admissible, any statement contained in a docu-
ment and tending
to
establish that fact shall, on production of
the document, be admissible as evidence of that fact if-(a)
the document is,
or
forms part
of,
a record relating to any trade
or
business and compiled, in the course of that trade
or
business,
from information supplied (whether directly
or
indirectly) by
persons who have,
or
may reasonably be supposed to have,
personal knowledge of the matters dealt with in the information
they supply; and
(b)
the person who supplied the information
recorded in the statement in question is dead,
or
beyond the
seas,
or
unfit by reason of his bodily
or
mental condition to
attend as
a
witness,
or
cannot with reasonable diligence be
identified
or
found,
or
cannot reasonably be expected (having
regard to the time which has elapsed since he supplied the
information and to all the circumstances) to have any recollec-
tion of the matters dealt with in the information he supplied.”
This means that not only will records such as those with which
Myers’
case itself was concerned be admissible as evidence of the
truth of their contents, but also that the rule against hearsay will
cease to obstruct justice in many other criminal cases. A company’s
accounts will, for instance, be admissible under the Act as evidence
of
the financial transactions which they record. The scope of the
Act is, however, severely limited by the fact that it is confined to
records relating to
a
trade
or
business. English lawyers will still
have to admit that a car’s logbook is not admissible evidence of
1
I19ti4I
3
W.L.R.
12.71;
[
I%i4]
2
All
15
If.
348.
2
119641
2
W.L.R.
269:
[l9(i4]
1
All
E.11.
967.
3
1
t~(i41
2
w.rI.rt.
145;
[IWI
2
AH
E.R.
881.
571
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