ABSTRACT
INTRODUCTION The scope of the rule against hearsay has been much reduced. The Civil Evidence Act 1995 has abolished the rule completely for civil proceedings. In 1995 the Law Commission published a Consultation Paper on the subject of hearsay in criminal cases, and in 1997 published a Report. The recommendations of the Commission have been very largely incorporated in Part 11, Chapter 2 of the Criminal Justice Act (CJA) 2003, which has created four principal categories of admissibility, all of which are available to both the defendant and the prosecution:
❖ hearsay admissible by statute; ❖ hearsay admissible under any preserved common law rule; ❖ hearsay admissible by agreement; ❖ hearsay admissible in the interests of justice (the ‘safety-valve’).
