WhatsApp has become a major means of communication used by millions of people worldwide. The Courts have recognised this, and evidence from WhatsApp communications can be used in Court to prove or disprove a point.
WhatsApp screenshots are the most potent form of evidence from WhatsApp since the other person can easily delete their side of the communication.
So, how must WhatsApp screenshots be saved to make them acceptable or admissible as evidence in Court?
They must come with the person’s number not their name or anything else, according to lawyer MaryAnne Obiagbaoso-Udegbunam.
She explained that before taking screenshots of WhatsApp communication as evidence, the person’s number, rather than their name must appear in the chats.
She explained how to achieve this:
“This is what you should do so that the WhatsApp chats will not be rej£ct£d:
- If you had saved the person’s number on your phone, go to your contact list and d£léte the person’s number. Don’t worry, your chats with the person will not dis@ppeár from your phone.
- Once you have del£ted the person’s number, go to your WhatsApp chats and open the person’s chat.
- Once you have done that, you will notice that the chat is just showing the person’s phone number and not the person’s name that you earlier saved.
- Take screenshots of the chats you want to rely on. The screenshots will carry the chats with just phone number.
- When you are done taking screenshots, save back the number on your phone. You don’t need to copy out the number; you can click “Add new contact” from the WhatsApp chats and save the number again.”
The respected lawyer explained that ensuring that the person’s number appears in the chats is prevent them from denying having had such a conversation with you.
“This is important because if you present the screenshots of the chats with a saved name anywhere, the person you want to use it against can d£ñy being the one you had the chats with.
He/she can claim that you just saved an unknown number with their name and had f@k£ chats with the person so you could use it ag@iñst him/her.
With this argúm£nt, those chats will be rejected if you cannot prove it’s a chat between you and the person.
For as long as the screenshots have the phone number of that person displayed, you have n@íled the person and the person won’t be able to d£ny the chats as the phone number can be verified.
Don’t let your relevant piece of evid£nce become irr£levañt simply because you f@i|ed to think ahead of your 0pp0nént,” he concluded.
