R v Anderson

In the case of R v Anderson, Glenn John Anderson appealed against a pre-trial ruling in the District Court which held that text messages and admissions were admissible at his trial on charges of threatening to kill Daniella Smythe and assaulting her. The case was heard by the Court of Appeal of New Zealand on 22 November 2007 and the judgment was given on 3 December 2007. The central legal issues in this case were whether the text messages in question were hearsay and, if so, whether they were admissible under the Evidence Act 2006.

The court held that the text messages were not hearsay as they were not assertions of any matter and were not offered to prove the truth of their contents. The issue, instead, was whether there was sufficient evidence to attribute the text messages to Mr Anderson. The court found that the text messages, if written by Mr Anderson, were defendant's statements and thus admissible under s 27 unless excluded under ss 28–30. The court concluded that the evidence in issue, namely the admission by Mr Anderson in his police interview and Ms Smythe's evidence, tended to prove that Mr Anderson wrote the messages and was therefore relevant and admissible. The court further held that there was nothing to suggest that the evidence would have an unfairly prejudicial effect on the trial.

The court granted leave to appeal but dismissed the appeals, and ordered that the judgment or the reasons therefor should not be published in news media or on the internet or other publicly accessible database until final disposition of the trial. However, publication in a law report or law digest was permitted.