Space Industry Act 2018

66 Use of records and documentary evidence

(1) In any legal proceedings, a document purporting to be certified by a prescribed person as being, or as being a true copy of, or of part of, a document issued or a record kept by the regulator for the purposes of this Act, or regulations made under this Act, is evidence, and in Scotland sufficient evidence, of the matters appearing from the document.

(2) In any legal proceedings, any record to which subsection (3) applies is evidence, and in Scotland sufficient evidence, of the matters appearing from the record.

(3) This subsection applies to a record if it was made by and is produced from the custody of a prescribed person, or a person acting under the control of a prescribed person, and purports to show—

(a) the position of a spacecraft at any material time,

(b) the terms or content of any message or signal transmitted to any spacecraft (whether alone or in common with other spacecraft) by the prescribed person or the person acting under that person’s control, or

(c) the terms or content of any message received from a spacecraft by the prescribed person or the person acting under that person’s control.

(4) The reference in subsection (3) to a record made by or under the control of a prescribed person includes a reference to a document or article—

(a) purporting to be a copy of the record so made, and

(b) certified to be a true copy by, or on behalf of, the prescribed person or the person acting under that person’s control.

This section has effect in relation to such a copy as if in subsection (3) the words “and is produced from the custody of” were omitted.

(5) A person who certifies a document or article as mentioned in subsection (4)(b) knowing that it is not a true copy commits an offence.