[1] The prosecution wished to introduce into the trial hearsay evidence from several witnesses that they believed would help establish that, "the deceased was frightened of her husband and was most unlikely to have invited him to her flat to shoot stray cats".

In allowing the Crown's appeal President Cooke famously held, At least in a case such as the present it may be more helpful to go straight to basics and ask whether in the particular circumstances it is reasonably safe and of sufficient relevance to admit the evidence notwithstanding the dangers against which the hearsay rule guards.

[4] Justice Casey reasoned that the Crown's evidence should be admitted on the basis of the 'state of mind' exception to the hearsay rule which had recently been confirmed in a judgment of Lord Bridge in R v Blastland [1986] AC 41,"It is, of course, elementary that statements made to a witness by a third party are not excluded by the hearsay rule when they are put in evidence solely to prove the state of mind either of the maker of the statement or the person to whom it was made.

"[5]In contrast to Gallen J who had seen Mrs Baker's statements of fear at her husband as "rather on the side of establishing a factual situation than of indicating a continuing state of mind"; Justice Casey believed, "By itself, the fact that the deceased did not invite her husband around to shoot cats advances the Crown case no further, if this is what the jury infers from the evidence of her state of mind.

Accordingly the evidence of her state of mind becomes directly relevant to the issue of his intentions towards her when he arrived and at the time of the shooting, which appears to have occurred not long afterwards.

[7] Elisabeth McDonald of the Victoria University Faculty of Law noted, "The test proposed by Cooke P in Baker, if read as a general discretion to admit hearsay, having significant implications for oral hearsay offered in criminal cases, was also the first articulation of such a test in the appellate courts of Anglo-American common law jurisdictions.