JB392/21 R v Matthew and James Wragg : Criminal Law

John Wigmore (1970) also defines the term confession to mean, “An acknowledgment in express words by the accused in a criminal case of the truth of the main fact charged or some essential part of it. ” The law governing confessions is provided by the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (1984). The Act defines confessions to include: “any statement wholly or partly adverse to the person who made it, whether made to a person in authority or not and whether made in words or otherwise.”
The Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) 1984 provides for the admissibility of confessions made by an accused person at any time before or during criminal proceedings. Section 76 (1) of PACE provides that confessions are generally admissible in UK criminal courts.