Court of Criminal Appeal
| Published date | 01 July 1950 |
| Date | 01 July 1950 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/002201835001400304 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Court of Criminal
Appeal
'SUSPECTED
PERSON'
:
NO
NEED
FOR
CHARACTER
TO
BE
KNOWN
AT
TIME
OF
ARREST
R. u. Clarke
T
HE
words 'suspected person' in section 4 of
the
Vagrancy
Act
1824
and
their meaning have been con-
sidered in
many
cases, including R. v. Fairbairn (1949 2
K.B.
690) which was discussed in
the
January
number of
this
JOURNAL
(Volume xiv, 68). No case would seem to
have been reported which has raised
the
point considered
by
the
Court in R. v. Clarke (1950, 1
All
E.R.
546). Can a
person who is proved
to
have frequented or loitered
about
aplace within
the
meaning of section 4 of
the
Vagrancy
Act 1824, with
intent
to commit a felony
and
to have been
previously convicted, be properly described as a 'suspected
person' within
the
section although
the
police officers who
gave evidence of his frequenting or loitering
with
that
intent
and
who arrested him were
then
unaware of
the
previous convictions?
It
was held
by
the
Court
(Humphreys, Hilbery
and
Sellers
JJ.)
that
thereis nothingin
the
Act or in
any
of
the
authoritiesto suggest
that
the
previous
convictions
must
be known to
the
arresting officers in order
to
prove
that
as
the
result of those convictions
the
person
convicted became asuspected person.
In
the
view of
the
Court,
any
such decision would
tend
to make
the
pro-
visions of section 4 useless since a thief might change his
venue
and
the
places where he chose
to
loiter
with
sufficient
frequency to make
it
unlikely
that
the
local police officers
would recognize him or know anything
about
him.
The
appellant was charged under section 23
(2)
of
the
Firearms Act 1937
with
the
offence of being in unlawful
possession of
an
imitation firearm
at
the
time of committing
an offence referred
to
in schedule
III
of
the
Act. One of
the
offences in
the
schedule is, of course,
an
offence
under
section 4 of
the
Vagrancy Act 1824, as amended.
By
284
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