Evidence of Bad Character in Criminal ... - Law Commission

8.32 We recommend that
(1) all other evidence of bad character should be admissible only with
the leave of the court, and
(2) leave should be granted only if the evidence falls within one of the
exceptions we recommend below.
8.33 The definition of bad character is key, and appears at the head of the Bill, in
clause 1. Clause 2 then describes the circumstances in which leave is not required
for evidence of bad character to be admissible. The aim here is to “ring-fence”
evidence of the offence itself, and it is important that this subclause delineates
the boundary around the central set of facts as accurately as possible. The
purpose of the examples given in the explanatory notes is to give as clear an
indication as we can where the boundaries lie. 11 The section would, of course, be
interpreted in the light of the other clauses in the Bill, and that fact in itself would
indicate that it, and in particular subsection (1)(a), is not an open door through
which any evidence, however loose its connection with the charges, might pass.
8.34 The structure of the Bill is put into diagrammatic form on the next page.
11 We note that a court may have recourse, for the purposes of clarification, to explanatory
notes attached to a statute, as stated by Lord Hope in A [2001] UKHL 25, para [82].
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