Expert Witness Journal Issue 65 February 2026 - Flipbook - Page 89
The Crown Court Compendium
by Bianca Brasoveanu, Barrister at Mountford Chambers
The Crown Court Compendium is the primary
point of reference on criminal procedure for the
judiciary when drafting directions in relation to
points of law and practice – as noted by Lord Justice
Simon in AG [2018] EWCA Crim 1393 – as well as
being a useful vade mecum for practitioners in the
course of a criminal trial. Part I deals with Jury and
Trial Management and Summing Up and Part II
with Sentencing in the Crown Court.
The Compendium provides the following stepped
approach to assist with the determination of
admissibility of multiple hearsay, which is not
admissible unless one of the statements involved in
the chain is:
The compendium is published by the Judicial
College, and regularly updated by its editors to
re昀氀ect changes and amendments in legislation
and procedure. The October 2025 update brought
changes in the following areas: recent case law,
guidance on procedure when the defendant’s 昀椀tness
to plead 昀氀uctuates during the course of the litigation
of a case and at trial, clari昀椀cation on the Mountford
problem, and recommendations pertaining to
e-mail exchanges between judges and advocates.
(4) where the court is so convinced by the value of
the evidence that it can invoke the additional “safety
valve” in s.121(1)(c) in which case the court should
identify a relevant statutory exception which would
apply to admit the 昀椀rst chain of hearsay (eg s.116 or
114(1)(d)) before considering whether the further
chain(s) are admissible as per Walker [2007] EWCA
Crim 1698.
Recent Case Law
“
(1) admissible as a business document (s.117); or
(2) a previous statement by a witness in the case; or
(3) all parties to the proceedings agree; or
In Plummer the following extract from Maher v DPP
[2006] EWHC 1271 (Admin) [26] was emphasised:
A number of recent cases are included in the
Compendium addressing scenarios frequently
encountered in Crown Court trials.
(i) R v Plummer [2025] EWCA Crim 1036
it is important to underline that care must be taken
to analyse the precise provisions of the legislation
and ensure that any route of admissibility is correctly
identi昀椀ed. In any case of multiple hearsay, that should
be done in stages so that each link in the multiple
chain can be tested”.
Chapters 14 and 16
(ii) R v Green [2025] EWCA Crim 923
This case deals with the admissibility of multiple
hearsay in the context of a cell confession which was
deemed to be hearsay due to the death of the person
alleged to have heard the confession.
Chapter 3
The judge’s conduct throughout the trial was
deemed fair by the Court of Appeal, but it was held
that the judge should have given a direction that the
jury should ignore his comments if it did not agree
with them.
Plummer reinforces that in the rare cases in which
multiple hearsay is admitted, it will be incumbent
on the judge to give a very clear jury warning about
the enhanced dangers, namely the greater risk of
unreliability, of the evidence in question. The jury
will need to be directed about each link in the chain
of hearsay.
EXPERT WITNESS JOURNAL
(iii) R v Vaughans [2025] EWCA Crim 9
The judge refused to allow the defendant to call
an expert witness in relation to the interpretation
of street slang to give a translation of the hearsay
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FEBRUARY 2026
