Criminal Justice Act 1948

41 Evidence by certificate.

(1) In any criminal proceedings, a certificate purporting to be signed by a constable, or by a person having the prescribed qualifications, and certifying that a plan or drawing exhibited thereto is a plan or drawing made by him of the place or object specified in the certificate, and that the plan or drawing is correctly drawn to a scale so specified, shall be evidence of the relative position of the things shown on the plan or drawing.

(2) In any proceedings for an offence under the Road Traffic Acts, 1930 to 1947, or under any other enactment relating to the use of vehicles on roads, a certificate in the prescribed form, purporting to be signed by a constable and certifying that a person specified in the certificate stated to the constable—

(a) that a particular motor vehicle was being driven by, or belonged to, that person on a particular occasion; or

(b) that a particular motor vehicle belonged on a particular occasion to a firm in which that person also stated that he was at the time of the statement a partner; or

(c) that a particular motor vehicle belonged on a particular occasion to a corporation of which that person also stated that he was at the time of the statement a director, officer or employee,

shall be admissible as evidence for the purpose of determining by whom the vehicle was being driven, or to whom it belonged, as the case may be, on that occasion.

(3) In any proceedings for an offence consisting of the stealing of goods in the possession of the British Transport Commission or any Executive (other than the Hotels Executive) constituted under section five of the [10 & 11 Geo. 6. c. 49.] Transport Act, 1947, or of receiving goods so stolen knowing them to have been stolen, or for an offence under section twelve or eighteen or subsection (2) of section thirty-three of the [6 & 7 Geo. 5. c. 50.] Larceny Act, 1916, or sections fifty to fifty-six of the [8 Edw. 7. c. 48.] Post Office Act, 1908, a statutory declaration made by any person—

(a) that he dispatched or received or failed to receive any goods or postal packet or that any goods or postal packet when dispatched or received by him were in a particular state or condition; or

(b) that a vessel, vehicle or aircraft was at any time employed by or under the Post Office for the transmission of postal packets under contract,

shall be admissible as evidence of the facts stated in the declaration.

(4) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to make a certificate or statutory declaration admissible as evidence in proceedings for an offence except in a case where and to the extent to which oral evidence to the like effect would have been admissible in those proceedings.

(5) Nothing in this section shall be deemed to make a certificate or statutory declaration admissible as evidence in proceedings for any offence—

(a) unless a copy thereof has, not less than seven days before the hearing or trial, been served in the prescribed manner on the person charged with the offence; or

(b) if that person, not later than three days before the hearing or trial or within such further time as the court may in special circumstances allow, serves notice in the prescribed form and manner on the prosecutor requiring the attendance at the trial of the person who signed the certificate or the person by whom the declaration was made, as the case may be.

(6) In this section the expression " prescribed " means prescribed by rules made by the Secretary of State.