Admissibility of certain documents in criminal proceedings - Business records

(1) For the purposes of this section “business” includes every kind of business, profession, occupation, calling, operation or activity, whether carried on for profit or otherwise. proceedings- (2) In any criminal proceeding where direct oral evidence of a fact would be admissible, any statement contained in a document and tending to establish that fact shall, on production of the document, be admissible as prima facie evidence of that fact if– (a) the document is, or forms part of, a record relating to any trade or business and compiled in the course of that trade or business from information supplied (whether directly or indirectly) by persons who have, or may reasonably be supposed to have, personal knowledge of the matters dealt with in the information they supply; and (b) the person who supplied the information recorded in the statement in question is dead, or outside Belize, or unfit by reason of his bodily or mental condition to attend as a witness, or cannot with reasonable diligence be identified or found, or cannot reasonably be expected (having regard to the time which has elapsed since he supplied the information and to all the circumstances) to have any recollection of the matters dealt with in the information he supplied. (3) For the purpose of deciding whether or not a statement is admissible as evidence by virtue of this section, the court may draw any reasonable inference from the form or content of the document in which the statement is contained, and may, in deciding whether or not a person is fit to attend as a witness, act on a certificate purporting to be a certificate of a registered medical practitioner. 50