§ Lord Ashbourneasked Her Majesty's Government:
Why it was considered to be so unsafe to convict a person of a procurement offence on the evidence of one witness only that a requirement for corroborating evidence became part of the Criminal Law Amendment Act 1885 and remained in the Sexual Offences Act 1956 and why it is felt to be safe to convict such a person on the evidence of one witness alone today; and
Why judges historically have had a duty to warn a jury about the dangers of convicting a person on the uncorroborated evidence of a child or an accomplice or, in the case of a sexual offence, the alleged victim, and why it is felt that a jury need not be so warned today.
Earl FerrersThe Government have accepted the recommendations which have been made by the Law Commission for the abolition of corroboration rules in England and Wales. The full background to those recommendations, which were endorsed by the great majority of those who commented on the Law54WA Commission's proposals, is set out in the Law Commission's Working Paper No. 115 and the Law Commission's Report No. 202, entitled Corroboration of Evidence in Criminal Trials.
The Government agree with the Law Commission that the current law represents an unnecessarily severe and complex fettering of the court's discretion to try any given case on its particular merits, and is needlessly productive of appeals.
In addition, the mandatory nature of the requirements relating to the uncorroborated evidence of accomplices and complainants in sexual cases reflects a generalised assumption about the evidence of such witnesses which the Government does not share. Where the particular circumstances demand it, the judge will still be free to deliver an appropriate warning, or, in extreme circumstances, to withdraw the case from the jury.
The requirement that the evidence of children should always be corroborated has already been abolished by the Criminal Justice Act 1988.