The Gazette 1990

GAZETTE

A PRIL 1990

the person who, for example, devised the scale on the thermometer. This consideration goes to weight rather than admissibility. In any event it certainly has nothing to do with the hearsay rule . . . " The Court of Appeal adopted that helpful explanation of real evidence and considered that the recorder was right to conclude that the computer printouts from the machine were real evidence. Taylor LJ stated that the computer printouts did not depend for their content on anything that had passed through the human mind. All that had happened was that when somebody in one of the hotel rooms lifted the receiver from the telephone and pressed certain buttons, the machine made a record of what was done and printed it out. Their Lordships considered that they were justified in applying the principle set out in Cross on Evidence (5th edition, 1979, page 47) and adopted in Castle -v- Cross that, if the instruments were of a kind as to which it was common knowledge that they were more often than not in working order, in the absence of evidence to the contrary the courts will "presume that [mechanical instruments] were in working order at the material time". The present case went further because of the positive evidence of the manager that the machine had been working properly. The recorder had been right to admit this evidence. •

L&/ING to theEnd

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