18 Sep '08 22:40>
Originally posted by no1marauderAs you point out the legal definitions are not necessarily those followed by the mods but in general they are reasonable guidelines in any walk of life
The Criminal Justice Act is hardly applicable to the RHP forums.
Even assuming that English law now varies from common law precedents regarding what is and isn't hearsay (those precedents were codified in the FRE), your Civil Evidence Act of 1995 explicitly states:
"In civil proceedings evidence shall not be excluded on the ground th ...[text shortened]... istent with it is admissible for the purpose of showing that he had contradicted himself.[/b]
Re Civil Proceedings
The Act moves some of the focus of hearsay evidence to weight, rather than admissibility, setting out considerations in assessing the evidence (set out in summary form):[15]
* reasonableness of the party calling the evidence to have produced the original maker
* whether the original statement was made at or near the same time as the evidence it mentions
* whether the evidence involves multiple hearsay
* whether any person involved had any motive to conceal or misrepresent matters
* whether the original statement was an edited account, or was made in collaboration with another, or for a particular purpose
* whether the circumstances of the hearsay evidence suggest an attempt to prevent proper evaluation of its weight