Bad Character & Hearsay - An Update for Criminal Practitioners

Introduction

This webinar will focus on recent Court of Appeal decisions and relevant legislation concerning bad character and hearsay evidence.

What You Will Learn

This webinar will cover the following:

• The 2022 Court of Appeal decision of Regina v Belhaj-Farhat - submission that bad character evidence was being used to bolster an evidentially weak case
• Is raising self-defence necessarily an attack upon the prosecution witness?
• R v Smith [2020] - the Court of Appeal expressing some displeasure at the way in which complex hearsay issues in an ABE interview were dealt with by the parties in the case
• Muldoon and Regina [2021] - a consideration of whether or not the previous statements made by the witnesses could be adduced as hearsay under Section 114 (1) (d) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 or as previous inconsistent statements
• An examination of Section 119 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 - inconsistent statements and Section 120 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 - consistent statements
• Regina v Oloyowang [2021] - consideration of the inclusion of evidence pursuant to Section 98 (a) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 - this is not bad character
• Section 98 (a) and (b) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 - their legal significance in terms of being admissible and the evidence not falling within the bad character regime
• AAM and Regina [2021] - the Court of Appeal considering, yet again, the evidential significance of Section 98 (a) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003
• Regina v Colecozy-Rogers [2021] - part of the defence case involved an attack upon the character of the deceased - implications in terms of a bad character application
• R v Bedward [2021] - yet another case in which the Court of Appeal considered whether or not text messages were hearsay - the same ground essentially as covered in R v Twist
• Hearsay statements and Section 115 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003
• Bad character applications concerning witnesses as opposed to defendants
• Bad character applications - non-convictions - defendants and witnesses - an examination of the cases of R v Braithwaite and R v Mitchell

This webinar was recorded on 8th February 2023