ABSTRACT
Although confessions are out-of-court statements adduced to prove the truth of their contents, they are admissible under s 76(1) of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 (PACE) as an exception to the hearsay rule.1 This provision put on a statutory basis an exception long recognised by the common law. Its justification was the supposed reliability of such statements. As Wills wrote:
However, it is recognised that considerations of fairness or reliability may make it undesirable to admit evidence of a particular confession, or other items of evidence on which the prosecution proposes to rely. The law on these matters reflects a tension between the need to ensure the conviction of the guilty and the need to ensure that
people are not convicted on evidence that is unreliable, or as a result of proceedings that are unfair.
