2 Hare Court

This Practice Note describes the statutory conditions which must exist to admit a statement of an unavailable witness in criminal proceedings as set out in section 116 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 (CJA 2003). It includes the standard of proof required to make out one of the statutory conditions. The Practice Note describes the procedure for seeking admission of the statement of an absent witness and the forms required by the Criminal Procedure Rules 2025, SI 2025/909. The statutory safeguards are also set out, as well as the rules as regards to sole and decisive hearsay evidence.

This Practice Note covers the law in relation to hearsay, text messages and other forms of communication in criminal proceedings. It covers whether a text message or voice message is hearsay under the Criminal Justice Act 2003 and how to identify hearsay. It also covers text messages and calls as circumstantial evidence, for example, when used to request drugs or to make other enquiries. It deals with proving the identity of a caller and confessions by text, referring to the three-stage test set out in case of R v Twist.