The Importance Of Evidence In Case Law

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Recommended: The exercise of police discretion in criminal investigations

Evidence is classed as obtained unfairly by a breach of contract, breach of professional responsibilities (i.e. those involved in investigating cases), by a crime or a tort. If the evidence is obtained via trickery, deception of inducements such as threats or bribes then this is also classed as being unfairly obtained. To exclude evidence in some cases may result in injustice and the guilty party being free from offense. Evidence is classed as unfairly obtained and can be excluded when; there is a serious violation to the rights of the third party and/or the accused, how serious the offence is that the accused has been charged with, whether the police acted maliciously or acted with an improper motive, whether the act was in a circumstance that was urgent or an necessary emergency and the availability of a sanction for the person responsible for the misconduct.
Section 78 PACE is not only about unfairly obtained evidence, but it cover all evidence that prosecution will rely upon. It is used mostly to exclude successfully confession evidence that PACE and Code C have been breached to obtain it.
Case law understands that sometimes there is a need to exclude evidences which have little relevance, and which may cause a decision to be made on an emotional basis or simply just being a waste of time. In case law if the evidence is unfairly obtained, it may be excluded from the case if its probative value is low, or if it is seen as prejudice in the eyes of the judge. In case law it is the judge in a criminal trial that makes the decision whether to admit evidence or exclude it which may have a prejudicial influence upon the jury, however the judge cannot refuse to admit relevant evidence that has been unfairly obtained, the court is not...

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...aled and it was argued that because the tape was recorded in breach to the rights of privacy, and should be excluded from the trial. However the House of Lords decided that the evidence obtained was rightly admitted under the section 78 PACE and common laws and therefore did not affect the fairness of the proceedings.
In R v Sanghera (2001) an unlawful search was carried out at the defendants address without consent. He did not argue the reliability of the evidence but wished he would be present so that he could explain the findings of the money within his property. He later argued that the evidence found should be excluded from the case under section 78 PACE, the judge however rejected this submission as the police had acted in good faith, and the evidence had not made an unfair trial, the defendant was later convicted and the Court of Appeal upheld his conviction.

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