Evidence in Criminal Cases: Sufficiency and Corroboration

Vocabulary practice flashcards covering Scots criminal law concepts and case authorities related to sufficiency, corroboration, neutral evidence, confessions, special knowledge confessions, dishonesty, and silence.

Sufficiency in Criminal Cases

The requirement that the Crown lead adequate evidence to secure a conviction, consisting of two aspects: proof of the case against the accused (that the crime was committed and that it was committed by the accused) and proof of the case by corroborated evidence.

Fox v HM Advocate 1998 SLT 335

Authority establishing that corroborative evidence must be independent evidence that 'strengthens, or confirms, or supports' the direct evidence; the sources must be independent and coincide, though it does not need to be more consistent with the complainer's account than any competing account.

Neutral evidence

Evidence that tends to neither incriminate nor exculpate an accused in the circumstances, which cannot serve as corroboration.

Gallagher v HM Advocate 2000 SCCR 634

Case in which three adminicles of evidence were regarded as entirely neutral and therefore could not corroborate the complainer's account.

Armit v O’Donnell 1999 JC 289

Case holding that a confession was sufficiently corroborated by the accused's presence near the scene shortly after police were called, demonstrating that a single piece of evidence in context can corroborate.

HM Advocate v Auld 2016 SCCR 159

Case where the accused's statement ('that's something naebody will ever know') when asked if he murdered the victim was held to be neutral and could not be construed as an admission.

Redpath v Webster 2012 SCCR 171

Case where an accused's statement during a police interview ('She’ll never press anything anyway') was held to be neutral and could not be treated as indicative of guilt.

Inconsistent evidence

Evidence that fails to match the principal evidence it is relied upon to corroborate, meaning it cannot confirm or support that principal evidence and is not corroborative.

Miller v HM Advocate 1994 SLT 640

Case where one witness described a stabbing in a house toilet and another described a punch to the chest in the hallway; the accounts were so inconsistent that there could be no corroboration.

MacDonald v Scott 1993 JC 54

Case where accounts given by a complainer and an eyewitness described assaults that were substantially different in character, resulting in a lack of corroboration.

Confession

Any incriminating statement made by the accused that acts as a strong piece of evidence against them because it is a statement against their own interests.

Mills v HM Advocate 1935 JC 77

Case establishing the rule that a confession itself needs to be spoken to by only one witness.

Callan v HM Advocate 1999 SLT 1102

Authority establishing that an accused cannot in law corroborate their own confession, whether by confessing to more than one person or repeating the confession more than once.

Meredith v Lees 1992 JC 127

Case cautioning that the convention that 'very little corroboration' is needed for a confession is not a rule; corroboration was found where a child's evidence was consistent in time, place, and circumstance with the accused's unequivocal confession.

Hartley v HM Advocate 1979 SLT 26

Murder case where corroboration of a confession to drowning a boy was derived from false statements about work location, a witness seeing a struggle with someone matching the accused's description, wet trousers and muddy boots that evening, and absence from work for a week.

Special knowledge confession

A confession (also termed a self-corroborating confession) containing information about how a crime was committed where the only reasonable explanation for possessing that information is that the confessor was the perpetrator.

Low v HM Advocate 1994 SLT 277

Authority stating that the making of a special knowledge confession should be spoken to by more than one witness.

Mitchell v HM Advocate 1996 SCCR 97

Case establishing that witnesses speaking to the making of a special knowledge confession do not need to accord on each and every element of the confession.

Manuel v HM Advocate 1958 JC 41

Classic special knowledge confession case involving the 'Beast of Birkenshaw', where finding the victim's body and shoe in locations identified by the accused corroborated the confession.

Wilson v McAughey 1982 JC 150

Authority establishing that a confession can still demonstrate special knowledge even if the police already know the information contained in it.

Wilson v HM Advocate 1987 JC 50

Case confirming that a confession can qualify as a special knowledge confession even when details of the crime might be publicly known at the time the confession is made.

Gilmour v HM Advocate 1982 SCCR 590

Authority holding that the inclusion of inaccurate information alongside accurate information does not rob a confession of its self-corroborating status.

Woodland v Hamilton 1990 SLT 565

Case where a confession failed to qualify as a special knowledge confession because there was a reasonable, non-incriminating explanation for how the accused acquired the knowledge.

Dishonesty of the accused (General rule)

The legal principle that an accused's lies can generally be used to assess credibility, but cannot provide corroboration.

Fisher v Guild 1991 SLT 253

Case holding that while the accused lied regarding driving a car, the lie was a 'worthless piece of evidence' that could not corroborate the Crown case.

Winter v Heywood 1995 JC 60

Case holding that where the accused falsely named someone else as the perpetrator and this was proven false by other evidence, the lie was sufficient to corroborate.

Brown v HM Advocate 2003 SLT 2

Case where the High Court hinted that it would be prepared to convene a bench of five judges to reconsider the approach taken in Winter v Heywood regarding corroboration via an accused's lies.

Silence of the accused

The principle that an accused person's silence carries no evidential value whatsoever and cannot corroborate evidence against them.

Robertson v Maxwell 1951 JC 11

Case featuring Lord Justice-General Cooper's statement that no legitimate inference in favour of the prosecution can be drawn from an accused staying silent or saying they have nothing to say when charged.