PACE Section 78
Definition
Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, section 78: UK courts may exclude prosecution evidence whose admission would adversely affect the fairness of the proceedings. Frequently applied to improperly obtained or inadequately documented digital evidence.
- Statute
- Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, s.78
- Jurisdiction
- England and Wales
- Applies to
- Prosecution evidence generally, including digital evidence
- Basis for exclusion
- Fairness of the proceedings, court's discretion
Common questions
What documentation gaps most often expose digital evidence to a s.78 challenge?+
A broken or unrecorded chain of custody, missing hash verification at seizure, or absence of a documented forensic imaging process are the recurring weaknesses defence counsel target, since they undermine confidence the exhibit presented in court matches what was seized.
Does a s.78 exclusion mean the evidence was fabricated?+
No. Exclusion under s.78 turns on fairness of admitting the evidence given how it was obtained or handled, not on a finding that the evidence itself is false; genuine evidence can still be excluded if the process around it was defective.
Related terms
- Authentication (FRE 901)
- The US requirement that a party offering evidence produce sufficient proof to support a finding that the item is what they claim....
- CSI Effect
- The tendency of jurors, shaped by television forensic dramas, to have unrealistic expectations of forensic evidence quality and to either over-weight clear...
- Daubert Standard
- The US federal evidentiary standard (Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, 1993) requiring that expert testimony be based on scientifically valid methods with...
- Expert's Duty to the Court
- The overriding obligation, recognised in common law and many civil law systems, that the expert's evidence must be honest, independent, and complete,...
- Frye Standard
- The US legal test for admissibility of scientific evidence, originating from Frye v. United States (1923), which required that a technique be...