Section 78 PACE
The court may refuse to allow prosecution evidence if its admission would have such an adverse effect on the fairness of proceedings that it ought not to be admitted. The primary discretionary exclusionary rule.
Independent editorial summary — not the official statute text. Read the official version on legislation.gov.uk.
Section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 gives the trial court a general discretion to exclude prosecution evidence, independently of whether a PACE Code of Practice has been breached. In any proceedings the court may refuse to allow evidence on which the prosecution proposes to rely to be given if it appears to the court that, having regard to all the circumstances, including the circumstances in which the evidence was obtained, the admission of the evidence would have such an adverse effect on the fairness of the proceedings that the court ought not to admit it.
Because the test asks about the fairness of the trial as a whole rather than simply whether a rule was broken, a breach of a PACE Code of Practice — for example in how a confession or identification evidence was obtained — does not automatically make that evidence inadmissible; it is only one of the circumstances the court weighs in deciding whether admitting the evidence would make the proceedings unfair.
Related terms
Official sources
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