Court of Criminal Appeal
| Published date | 01 January 1950 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201835001400104 |
| Date | 01 January 1950 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Court of Criminal Appeal
,
SUSPECTED
PERSON':
PROOF
OF
PREVIOUS
CONVICTION AS
EVIDENCE
R. v. Fairbairn
THE question of
what
it
is necessary
to
prove before a
person
can
be convicted of being asuspected person
within
the
meaning of section 4 of
the
Vagrancy Act, 1824
has been
the
subject of a
great
many
decisions. R. v.
Fairbairn (1949, 2
K.B.
706) is a useful addition to these
decisions because
it
brings
out
clearly,
what
is perhaps only
implicit in most of
the
previous cases,
that
evidence of a
previous conviction
may
be given to establish
that
aperson
arrested on a charge of loitering
with
intent
is a ' suspected
person'
within
the
meaning of
the
section.
The
essence of
the
ruling in R. v. Fairbairn is to be
found in
the
following passage from
the
judgment
delivered
by
Lord
Goddard, speaking for
the
Court (Oliver
and
Birkett
J
J.):
"The
reason why
the
evidence of previous
convictions is
not
allowed to be given in
the
ordinary case
is because
they
are
not
considered relevant.
If
the
charge
against a
man
is, for example, of breaking
and
entering a
house on
January
1 in
the
year 1949,
it
is
not
relevant to
that
charge
that
he was convicted of breaking
and
entering
ahouse on
January
1, 1948.
It
only goes to show
that
he
is a person who might be likely to commit an offence,
but
not
that
he
had
committed
that
offence.
But
when an
Act
like
the
Vagrancy Act 1824, which has now been on
the
statute-book
for 125 years, has been authoritatively
expounded
by
the
Court of Appeal,
and
it
is necessary
to bring aperson within
the
category of a suspected person,
there
is no
better
evidence
that
such person comes within
that
category
than
by
proving
that
he has
had
one or more
previous convictions".
The
appellant appealed against his conviction
under
s. 23 (2) of
the
Firearms Act 1937 of
the
offence of being
in possession of a firearm
at
the
time
of his arrest
under
68
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