This book provides students with essential guidance on what is a conceptually difficult topic. It draws together essential cases, statutes and practical readings on civil and criminal evidence, linked by an extensive interpretative commentary. It provides a firm grounding in the rules of evidence and the relationship between evidence and procedure, placing that relationship, wherever possible, in the broader context of the criminal and civil justice systems. It explores the connection between the rules of evidence and the nature of the common law adversarial trial with its stress on oral testimony, day in court and the examination of witnesses.