Courts of Summary Jurisdiction
| Published date | 01 July 1960 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201836002400301 |
| Date | 01 July 1960 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
The
Journal
of
Criminal Law
VOL.
XXIV. No. 3
JULy-SEPTEMBER,
1960
Courts
of
Summary Jurisdiction
STOLEN
PROPERTY:
PRESUMPTION
OF RECENT POSSESSION
FOR many years the key judicial decision governing
the
law with regard to defences advanced in answer to charges of
stealing and receiving based on
the
recent possession of
the
accused has been R. v. Abramovitch or
R.
v. Schama (1914,
II
Cr. App. R. 45).
The
case has been one of first-rate importance
and still is although recent judicial decisions have somewhat
modified it.
Abramovitch was an appeal to the
Court
of Criminal
Appeal, acourt of fivejudges headed by
Lord
Reading who was
then
the
Lord
Chief Justice.
The
prisoner Abramovitch
and
Schama had been charged with receiving.
In
his summing-up aCommissioner of
the
Central
Criminal
Court
had told the
jury:
"If
you think
that
the
defendants have given an explanation of how they were
honestly dealing with these goods,
and
if you are prepared to
accept
that
explanation, by all means accept
it;
but
if you
think you cannot accept it,
then
you will find each of
them
guilty".
The
conviction was quashed.
In
his
judgment
Lord
Reading said the correct direction to the
jury
should be
"If
an
explanation is given which may be true, it is for the
jury
to
say on
the
whole evidence whether the accused is guilty or
not;
that
is to say, if the
jury
think
that
the
explanation may reason-
ably be true, though they are not convinced
that
it is true,
the
prisoner is entitled to an acquittal because
the
Crown has
not
discharged
the
onus of proof imposed
upon
it of satisfying the
jury
beyond reasonable doubt of the prisoner's guilt".
This
gives
the
defence a very wide opening indeed
though, as many receivers have found to their cost, it is not so
wide
that
they can be reasonably certain of driving acarriage
and pair through. We may paraphrase it as
saying-"Provided
161
l-a.
To continue reading
Request your trial