R v Sang
At common law, a judge has no discretion to exclude relevant evidence merely because it was obtained improperly, except confessions and similar evidence.
Facts
Mr Sang was charged with conspiracy to utter forged banknotes. He claimed that he had been induced to commit the offence by a police informer acting on the instructions of the police, and asked the judge to exclude the prosecution evidence on the ground that it had been obtained by entrapment.
Legal principle
The House of Lords held that entrapment is not a defence in English law, and that a judge has no discretion to exclude relevant evidence merely because it was obtained by improper or unfair means, except for admissions, confessions and evidence obtained from the defendant after the offence. Lord Diplock said that the court is not concerned with how evidence was obtained, but with whether its admission would make the trial unfair. The position was changed by section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, which gives the court a wider discretion to exclude evidence that would have an adverse effect on the fairness of the proceedings, and entrapment was later dealt with in R v Looseley.
Related cases on criminal justice, evidence and appeals
- Connelly v Director of Public Prosecutions [1964] AC 1254
- Murray v United Kingdom (1996) 22 EHRR 29
- R (Adams) v Secretary of State for Justice [2011] UKSC 18, [2012] 1 AC 48
- R (Hallam) v Secretary of State for Justice [2019] UKSC 2, [2020] AC 279
- R v Cooper [1969] 1 QB 267
- R v Cowan [1996] QB 373
- R v Davis [2008] UKHL 36, [2008] 1 AC 1128
- R v Dunlop [2006] EWCA Crim 1354, [2007] 1 WLR 1657
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