The Quick and the Dead: Who Counts as a ‘Person’ under S. 100 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003?

Abstract

Section 100 of the Criminal Justice Act 2003 has transformed the law's attitude to references to non-defendants' bad character in criminal trials. Unless the bad character has to do with the facts of the case, or the investigation or prosecution of the offence, the leave of the court must now be sought before a party can adduce ‘the bad character of a person other than the defendant’. The word ‘person’ is problematical since the legislature does not normally use this term to denote those who are dead. This article addresses the problem of how the term ‘person’ should be construed.