Page 342 - Magistrates Conference 2019

1) Statements admitted as part of res gestae; These are statements or acts which are
connected with the facts in issue and occur at the same time and are an integral part of

what happened and is the subject of the Court’s proceedings are admissible: Price v The
State (1982) 37 WIR 222

• Spontaneous (not solicited)

• Contemporaneous, there should be no possibility of concoction or fabrication or the
statement will be excluded.

2) Dying declarations; A dying declaration at common law may be admitted where it is

shown that the maker of the statement died, that a trial where the statement is needed

follows, that the statement related to the cause of the deceased death and that when
making the statement the deceased was shown to have had a settled hopeless expectation

of death. R v Lawson [1998] EWCA Crim. 1495 (1 WIR 344); Jainarine Prashad v The
State (1998) 58 WIR 236

3) Other statements by the deceased: interest, duty, pedigree, public rights, testators;

4) Public documents;

5) Admissions and confessions; Confession statements made in the presence of a party to a
criminal proceedings are not themselves admissible as truth or proof of the statement

save and except that acknowledgement of truth of the statement can be inferred from
either a response of the party by words or conduct: Queen v Christie [1914] AC 545

(c) Admission of Documents

Anguilla

th
Every document which by any law in force on or after 25 April, 1876 is admissible in evidence
in any Court of Justice in England shall be admissible in evidence in the like manner, to the same

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