This is the second edition of John Spencer's now well established book which seeks to explain this complex area of law for the benefit of members of judges, criminal practitioners and academics teaching the law of evidence. In the past, the rule excluding evidence of the defendant's general bad character and disposition to commit the offence was sometimes described as one of the most hallowed rules of evidence; Lord Sankey, in Maxwell v DPP, referred to it as '...one of the most deeply rooted and jealously guarded principles of our criminal law.' In reality it was not particularly ancient,...