The appellant appealed his conviction for sexual assault, arguing the trial judge erred in admitting text messages sent by the complainant during the alleged assault for the truth of their contents under the spontaneous utterance exception to the hearsay rule.
The Superior Court of Justice allowed the appeal, finding that the common law exception for spontaneous utterances should be modified to require the party seeking admission to prove necessity when the declarant testifies at trial.
The court held that the text messages were improperly admitted for their truth as they lacked necessity and sufficient indicia of reliability, and the trial judge improperly used them to corroborate the complainant's credibility.
A new trial was ordered.
