Criminal Evidence - 1900- 1929

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This page lists 8 cases, and was prepared on 28 October 2012.

Rex -v- Bond [1906] 2 KB 389
1906 Kennedy J	Criminal Evidence	Casemap 1 Citers
	The court considered the rule excluding evidence of the defendant's bad character: "The general rule cannot be applied where the facts which constitute distinct offences are at the same time part of the transaction which is the subject of the indictment. Evidence is necessarily admissible as to acts which are so closely and inextricably mixed up with the history of the guilty act itself as to form part of one chain of relevant circumstances, and so could not be excluded in the presentation of the case before the jury without the evidence being thereby rendered unintelligible." The court gave examples of trials for murder or wounding, where evidence is given to show prior assaults by the accused on the victim, or menaces or threats uttered to him.

Rex -v- Ball [1911] A C 47
1911 HL Lord Atkinson	Criminal Evidence	Casemap 1 Citers
	Evidence of sexual acts or advances other than those which are the subject of the charge is frequently adduced to show the true nature of the relationship between the parties, a practice which may be regarded as an acceptable and inevitable form of evidence of 'guilty passions': "Surely in an ordinary prosecution for murder you can prove previous acts or words of the accused to shew he entertained feelings of enmity towards the deceased, and that is evidence not merely of the malicious mind with which he killed the deceased, but of the fact that he killed him. You can give in evidence the enmity of the accused towards the deceased to prove that the accused took the deceased’s life. Evidence of motive necessarily goes to prove the fact of the homicide by the accused, as well as his ‘malice aforethought,’ inasmuch as it is more probable that men are killed by those who have some motive for killing them than by those who have not."

Rex -v- Christie [1914] AC 545
1914 HL Lord Atkinson	Criminal Evidence	Casemap 1 Citers
	The House considered the admissibility in evidence of a false statement made in the defendant's presence, but uncontradicted by him: "the rule of law undoubtedly is that a statement made in the presence of an accused person, even on an occasion which should be expected reasonably to call for some explanation or denial from him, is not evidence against him of the facts stated save in so far as he accepts the statement, so as to make it his own. If he accepts the statement in part only, then to that extent alone does it become his statement. He may accept the statement by word or conduct, action or demeanour, and it is the function of the jury which tries the case to determine whether his words, action, conduct or demeanour at the time when a statement was made amounts to an acceptance of it in whole or in part . . ."

Rex -v- Twiss (1918) 13 Cr App R 177
1918	Criminal Evidence	Casemap 1 Citers

Rex -v- Voisin [1918] 1 KB 531; [1918-19] All ER 491
1918 Lawrence J, Lush J	Criminal Evidence	Casemap
	The defendant stood charged with the murder of a woman, part of whose body was found in a parcel along with a handwritten note bearing the words "Bladie Belgiam". The defendant, who had not yet been cautioned, was asked by the police to write the words "Bloody Belgian", which he did. He made exactly the same misspelling as had the writer of the note. The handwriting was admitted in evidence. Held: His appeal failed. It did not make any difference to the admissibility of the handwriting whether it was written voluntarily or under compulsion. Where it is alleged that a statement has been obtained in breach of the Judges' Rules, the court has a discretion to admit or reject such evidence. Lawrence J spoke of the Judges' Rules: "These Rules have not the force of law; they are administrative directions the observance of which the police authorities should enforce upon their subordinates as tending to the fair administration of justice. It is important that they should do so, for statements obtained from prisoners contrary to the spirit of these Rules may be rejected as evidence by the judge presiding at the trial."

Rex -v- Trupedo (1920) App Div 58
1920 Innes CJ	Commonwealth, Criminal Evidence	Casemap 1 Citers
	(South Africa) Evidence concerning the activity of a tracker dog was not admissible. Innes CJ said: "We have no scientific or accurate knowledge as to the faculty by which dogs of certain breeds are said to be able to follow the scent of one human being, rejecting the scent of all others . . there is too much uncertainty as to the constancy of his behaviour and as to the extent of the factor of error involved to justify us in drawing legal inferences therefrom."

Rex -v- White (1926) 5 DLR 2
1926	Commonwealth, Criminal Evidence	1 Cites 1 Citers
	(British Colombia) Evidence regarding a tracker dog was held inadmissible.

Rex -v- Berg and others (1927) 20 Cr App R 38
1927 CCA	Crime, Criminal Evidence
	The defendants were said to have conducted a disorderly house in providing exhibitions of a perverted nature. Held: The common law offence of keeping a disorderly house is committed when the house is so conducted as to violate law and good order. Letters found in such a house referring to unnatural practices may be put in evidence of such use.