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The article discusses the British court case R v Drinkwater, wherein the Court of Appeal accepted the discretion to exclude hearsay evidence under section 126 of Criminal Justice Act 2003. It states that appellant was convicted of two rapes, and put matters before the jury under the Criminal Justice Act 1967, and the judge declined to admit the hearsay evidence, citing the case R v Riat of the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal didn't conclude about the exclusionary discretion.

The article discusses the court case R. v. Sliogeris wherein the appellant was convicted of murder based on circumstantial evidence. The Crown alleged that the appellant and four co-defendants had been jointly responsible for the crime. The appeal focused on a claim made by one of the co-defendants that he saw the appellant beat a man to death.

The admissibility of hearsay evidence in criminal proceedings in England and Wales is now governed by provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 2003, a result of Law Commission reform proposals. The Law Commission's Report left several issues concerning the admissibility of confessions in the context of its proposed hearsay regime unclear, some of which have not yet been clarified by the post-2003 Act jurisprudence. In particular, whilst the authorities have established that confessions made by third parties may be admissible in exceptional circumstances, the courts have not yet engaged with s. 128(2) of the 2003 Act which limits the extent to which confessions made by defendants may be admissible under the 2003 Act's provisions. Moreover, whilst the Court of Appeal has recognised both that certain confessions may exist outside the 2003 Act's statutory framework and that the admissibility of such a confession for the prosecution when made by a defendant is governed by s. 76 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, other issues concerning the admissibility of such confessions have not yet been resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Section 114(1)(d) of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 gave the criminal courts discretion to admit hearsay evidence in the interests of justice. The Law Commission envisaged that the courts would only exercise this inclusionary discretion in exceptional circumstances. Whilst the admissibility threshold created by s. 114(1)(d) is not as high as the Law Commission had intended, the recent jurisprudence suggests that the courts will exercise the s. 114(1)(d) discretion much as the Law Commission had anticipated except that, contrary to the Law Commission's intentions, there is authority for the proposition that where a confession is admitted under s. 114(1)(d) it may be admissible against persons other than its maker and there is also authority for the proposition that the hearsay evidence of a witness who cannot be identified is not admissible under s. 114(1)(d). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]