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CRIMINAL EVIDENCE ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1965

CRIMINAL EVIDENCE ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1965 - LONG TITLE

An Act to make certain trade or business records admissible as
evidence in criminal proceedings.
[8th July 1965]
Admissibility of certain trade or business records.

CRIMINAL EVIDENCE ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1965 - SECT 1

1.(1) In any criminal proceedings where direct oral evidence of a
fact would be admissible, any recorded representation contained in a
document and tending to establish that fact shall, on production of
the document, be admissible as evidence of that fact if

(a)the document is, or forms part of, a record relating to any
trade or business and compiled, in the course of that trade or
business, from information supplied (whether directly or indirectly)
by persons who have, or may reasonably be supposed to have,
personal knowledge of the matters dealt with in the information they
supply; and

(b)the person who supplied the information recorded in the
representation in question is dead, or beyond the seas, or unfit by
reason of his bodily or mental condition to attend as a witness,
or cannot with reasonable diligence be identified or found, or
cannot reasonably be expected (having regard to the time which has
elapsed since he supplied the information and to all the
circumstances) to have any recollection of the matters dealt with in
the information he supplied.

(2) For the purpose of deciding whether or not a recorded
representation is admissible as evidence by virtue of this section,
the court may draw any reasonable inference from the form or
content of the document in which the representation is contained,
and may, in deciding whether or not a person is fit to attend as
a witness, act on a certificate purporting to be a certificate of
a fully registered medical practitioner.

(3) In estimating the weight, if any, to be attached to a recorded
representation admissible as evidence by virtue of this section
regard shall be had to all the circumstances from which any
inference can reasonably be drawn as to the accuracy or otherwise
of the representation, and, in particular, to the question whether
or not the person who supplied the information recorded in the
representation did so contemporaneously with the occurrence or
existence of the facts represented or may be taken to have done
so, and to the question whether or not that person, or any person
concerned with making or keeping the record containing the
representation, had any incentive to conceal or misrepresent the
facts.

(4) In this section "recorded representation" includes any
representation of fact, whether made in words or otherwise,
"document" includes any device by means of which information is
recorded or stored and "business" includes any public transport,
public utility or similar undertaking carried on by or on behalf of
a local or public authority.

CRIMINAL EVIDENCE ACT (NORTHERN IRELAND) 1965 - SECT 2
Short title and saving.

2.(1) This Act may be cited as the Criminal Evidence Act (Northern
Ireland) 1965.

(2) Nothing in this Act shall prejudice the admissibility of any
evidence which would be admissible apart from the provisions of this
Act.


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URL: http://www.bailii.org/nie/legis/num_act/ceai1965311.txt