Justin Plummer v R

Where a prosecution depends materially on hearsay, Criminal Justice Act 2003, section 125 requires the court to consider whether the statement evidence is so unconvincing, having regard to its importance, that any conviction would be unsafe. The duty arises on the court’s own initiative and is generally assessed after all the evidence, with the proposed jury directions in view. Multiple hearsay which is decisive requires a clear, tailored direction addressing each link in the chain and the particular risks of untested evidence. A generic summary of the evidence may be insufficient. The conviction was quashed because the judge failed to undertake the section 125 assessment and the directions did not adequately address the reliability and importance of the decisive cell-confession evidence.

Justin Plummer v R concerned a second conviction for a 1997 murder. The appellant’s first conviction had been quashed and a retrial ordered. At the retrial in the Crown Court at Aylesbury, the prosecution relied heavily on a deceased prison informant’s statement alleging that the appellant had confessed while they shared a cell. The statement was admitted as multiple hearsay under section 121 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003.

The trial judge did not consider section 125 after the close of the prosecution case and gave no tailored hearsay warning. The appeal raised the admissibility of the statement, the section 125 safeguard and the adequacy of the jury directions.

1. Appeal allowed and conviction quashed. The Court held that the case should have been stopped under section 125 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003. The failure to undertake that assessment rendered the conviction unsafe.
2. Section 125 imposes a duty on the court to consider the issue even if neither party raises it. Following [2024] EWCA Crim 1494, the assessment will generally be best made after all the evidence, when the judge can evaluate the importance and reliability of the statement and the tailored direction proposed for the jury.
3. The statutory tests of whether evidence is unconvincing and whether a conviction would be unsafe differ from the ordinary Galbraith limb 2 no-case test, explained in [2011] EWCA Crim 1844. The question under section 125 required attention to the statement’s decisive importance, the weakness of the independent evidence, the inability to cross-examine the deceased witness, the witness’s status as a paid police informant, requests for benefits, changing accounts, missing records and the passage of 26 years.
4. The alleged confession contained no accurate detail of the killing which only the killer could have known. The evidence was therefore highly unconvincing in context. The appellant’s alleged confession to his mother did not provide strong independent support. That evidence was itself multiple hearsay, or at least subject to the same reliability concerns, and had not been accompanied by a hearsay direction.
5. A case involving decisive multiple hearsay requires a clear and tailored jury direction. The direction should address the enhanced risks of hearsay, the particular dangers of cell-confession evidence, possible incentives to obtain an advantage, inconsistencies between accounts, missing material and delay. The generic direction and careful factual summing-up were insufficient. The Court relied on the principles concerning the management of hearsay in [2012] EWCA Crim 1509.
6. The Court did not decide whether the statement had been wrongly admitted under section 121, or whether exclusion under section 78 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 was required. It disposed of the appeal on the basis that the evidence should have been withdrawn under section 125 even assuming it had been properly admitted.

• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On 30 July 2025, the appeal against the 2023 conviction was allowed and the conviction was quashed: [2025] EWCA Crim 1036.
• Crown Court at Aylesbury: On 19 June 2023, the appellant was convicted of murder at retrial. He was sentenced on 25 July 2023.
• Court of Appeal (Criminal Division): On 15 July 2021, the appellant’s original murder conviction was quashed and a retrial was ordered. The citation is not stated in the judgment.
• Crown Court at St Albans: On 16 December 1998, the appellant was convicted of murder. A renewed application for leave to appeal was refused on 17 January 2000.