Video evidence in court

[amyrose]

Morning everyone, I am new to answer bank but just thought I’d give it a go and ask if anyone could advise please.
In July of this year my Daughter in-law had a row with my neighbour and was arrested for assault, even though she insists she did not hit the woman she had to appear in court and then to trial, which is tomorrow, no witnesses saw anything except me to which I have made a statement saying I did not see her hit the woman. It is also said my son stood and gave her 4 hours of abuse in the front garden, I have said in my statement that he did not but now he says he did stand for about 30 mins shouting at her, I have heard from a friend of the alleged victim that she recorded the incident and this will be brought up in court, I’m sure our solicitor would have told us of this if it were true, but then again we have never been to court before so we don’t know the procedure. Could anyone tell me if this was true about the video our solicitor should tell us otherwise we would be lying in court. Sorry for the long rant, hope someone can advise, thanks in advance.

[scotman]

I would have thought that if the police were aware of this recording they would have passed it to the CPS. They then would/should have informed the defence solicitors.
If this recording exists and has not been passed to police then there may be rules about disclosure that apply.

[New Judge]

Yes there certainly are rules.

As part of the prosecution process the CPS has to make available all the evidence it has in connection with the matter. This includes all the material they intend to use as evidence in court but also includes any material that may have been gathered in the course of the enquiries even if they do not intend to use it. This is to prevent them keeping back evidence which may not suit their case but which may help the defendant and this is known as “unused material”.

Evidence cannot be produced (by either side) on the day of the trial if it has not been seen by the other side previously. So if this video evidence exists and your daughter’s solicitor has not been made aware of it, it cannot be used. If they intend to use it in such circumstances the prosecution will either have to get your daughter’s solicitor to agree to its inclusion and he would be entitled to ask for an adjournment to allow time for him to do so.

[amyrose]

Thank you so much, new judge and scotman.

[Smowball]

do you know how she is alleged to have recorded this? and why? was she expecting a scene??