Hearsay

Section 114 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 sets the general rule and its exceptions together: 'a statement not made in oral evidence in the proceedings is admissible as evidence of any matter stated if, but only if — (a) any provision of this Chapter or any other statutory provision makes it admissible, (b) any rule of law preserved by section 118 makes it admissible, (c) all parties to the proceedings agree to it being admissible, or (d) the court is satisfied that it is in the interests of justice for it to be admissible.' The default is exclusion; hearsay only comes in through one of these four gateways.

The fourth gateway — the court's own 'interests of justice' discretion — is not open-ended. The Act requires the court to weigh a specific list of factors, including 'how much probative value the statement has (assuming it to be true) in relation to a matter in issue in the proceedings', 'how reliable the maker of the statement appears to be', 'whether oral evidence of the matter stated can be given and, if not, why it cannot', and 'the amount of difficulty involved in challenging the statement.' The provision also makes clear that admitting a statement as an exception to the hearsay rule does not immunise it from other objections: 'Nothing in this Chapter affects the exclusion of evidence of a statement on grounds other than the fact that it is a statement not made in oral evidence in the proceedings.'