Law of Evidence is Tha S***

I rushed to my law lecture today nervous and intrigued as to why it started at 6pm. Part of me fort my teacher put it on my timetable because he wanted a passionate late session with me where he would look passionately into my eyes whilst talking about the injustices of the law surrounding evidence. But then i thought realistically and assumed that i had just been rejected from the main class because there just wasnt enough room. What i found out was i actually attend a part time course which is positive because i don't have to wake up early in the morning half awake litening to the spiralling arguments entrapping this section of law.

But anyway, what i learnt today was simply amazing.

The Law of evidence is the "body of law and discretion regulating the means by which facts may be proved in both courts of law, tribunals and arbitration". The centering principle surrounding the law is that "all evidence is admissable, subject to the exceptions".

Onufrejczyk (1955)

Circumstantial evidence can prove any element in a criminal case. The D was convictied of murdering his partner on the basis of circumstantial evidence as there was no body found. The evidence included letters which implied that the D knew his partner would not return and blood on his clothing. a disagreement between the two arose as S wanted to sell the farm they both owened but D did not have enough money to buy out his partner. S then wanted to put it up for auction but D objected.

Rex v Horry, is an earlier case in which a man was found guilty of killing his wife despite the absence of her body. Due to general simliarity, it would seem the judge in Onufrejczyk sought the headnote of Horry overlooking a distinction because in the RvH, the D had written letters stating clearly that they believed the victim to be dead.

O appealed on the 3 grounds:

1. the judge failed to inform the jury that no-one in the history of law had been convicted of murder without body. Purely circumstantial.

2. Judge folloed headnote in Rex v Horry but failed to make distinction between the fact that in Horry, the d confirmed victim dead via letters.

3. Evidence was not suffiecient - no proof of death.

The prosecution Elwyn Jones Q.C argued the evidence was circumstantial and "pure conjecture"

Sir Matthew Hale in Pleas of the Crown, vol. 2 [289], said: "In some cases presumptive evidences go far to prove a person guilty, though there be no express proof of the fact to be committed by him, but then it must be very warily pressed, for it is better five guilty persons should escape unpunished, than one innocent person should die"; and (ibid. [290]):

The negatives of the case are the fact that there is no proof of the body, Sykut is alive, then the court is convicted a man of the murder of someone who is alive. This does not sound like justice.

"In all the cases there has always been some direct evidence of the killing or there has been a body. This is the first case in which there is evidence of neither."

Also in terms of Lord Hale statement, it no longer seems completely relevant as its from a different time. This period there was no police force, and things such as quicker flights. Being able to leave the country whenever possible was alot easier.