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This is a good series of questions, thank you. I'll just explain this rule again to refine anything I didn't convey well. The starting position in the common law is you can never incriminate yourself. This is why you have all sorts of protections that turn up in a number of ways. https://twitter.com/AnthonyMcIntyre/status/1332702624878108672
Amongst these, of course, is I believe an American constitutional amendment, the 'Miranda Rights' you see American police issue in films, and things like police in the UK warning you about anything you say being taken down in evidence against you. These are all protections.
But incriminating yourself is not the same as confessing to something. In the common law, if you confess something, it can be used in evidence against you. However, there are different types of confessions & different reasons why they're made. Some can be legal. Some not.
The problem then becomes what do you do in situations where someone's confessed something that can cause them problems. Remember: they can't incriminate themselves. But incrimination is taken to mean you made an admission you didn't intend. So where do you draw this distinction?
And this is really what the hearsay rule sets out to deal with. It first of all makes it clear that any statement (so not only confessions) can be admitted against you but only as hearsay. This is the same if the statements were given to another person, or even a video recording.
And the common law is a peculiar beast like this. It deals with everything very axiomatically. So it doesn't matter if the hearsay 'witness' is another person, a tape recorder, or even you. All of them are effectively 'testifying against' you. Even yourself.
But you cannot testify against another person (even if it's you against you) without coming under oath. And so any testimony like that is treated as 'hearsay' - second hand information. The person making the testimony must then be cross-examined. Even you against you.
But remember: confessions are not always hearsay. People can be caught on tapes threatening others. They can confess in police interview rooms. They can make oblique references to having committed a crime. All of these are common law confessions that don't come under hearsay.
And the reason they don't is largely due to one of the bedrock principles of the common law: consent. If you say something willingly, without fear, etc. you say it freely. And this is why you then come across recording consent rules & so on. So long as you consent, it's willing.
BUT you still can't incriminate yourself. And you get a variety of situations where this could happen. You record yourself saying something, you tell someone, you admit it because you're afraid, or incapacitated in some way. So this is where Parliament makes this key distinction.
And they say in ALL these situations where you potentially incriminate yourself, anything said is hearsay. BUT it's only hearsay if when you said it, you intended for someone to believe you as actually admitting to something. Not just admitting. You wanted someone to believe you.
If that's the case (no matter how you said it) that is incriminating and whomever relays it, person, tape, whatever - is relaying hearsay. But Heard didn't do this. She didn't want Depp or anyone to believe her. She was freely admitting. And that is common law confession.
The same as if I say on tape "I stole a biscuit from Laura" & send that tape to the police. I want them to believe it = hearsay rule (protected). But if I upload it to YouTube in a series "My Biscuit Thievery This Week" = common law confession (not protected).
I hope that makes it all clearer. It's a very nuanced distinction but the Act is very clear: it's only hearsay if you wanted someone to believe it. This separates it from ANY other type of statement generally, including actionable confession.
