Courts of Summary Jurisdiction
| DOI | 10.1177/002201834801200301 |
| Published date | 01 July 1948 |
| Date | 01 July 1948 |
| Subject Matter | Courts of Summary Jurisdiction |
The
Journal
of
Criminal
Law
VOl,.
XII.
No.3.
]UI,Y.SJn>T, 1948.
Courts of Summary Jurisdiction
,
INJURING'
A
HACKNEY
CARRIAGE
ASALUTARY provision of
the
London Hackney Carriage
Act, 1831 (which is closelyparallel in s. 67 of
the
Town
Police Clauses Act, 1847) provides
that
"If
any person
shall deface or in any manner injure
any
such hackney
cab
....
it
shall be lawful
....
upon proof of
the
facts upon
oath
before
any
such justice, to award reason-
able satisfaction to
the
party
so complaining. . . . for his
damages and costs, and also a reasonable compensation
for his loss of time in attending to make
and
establish
such complaint."
For
many
years cabmen have relied upon this section
to deal with those, unfortunately too frequent, cases of
persons urinating in cabs and
it
was a
matter
of surprise
when Mr.
Paul
Bennet,
the
magistrate
at
Marlborough
Street
Magistrates' Court, recently took
the
view
that
this
section did
not
cover such cases. The evidence for
the
cab driver in
that
case was on
the
usua1lines-that
the
inside of
the
cab was in order when
the
driver was hired
by
the
defendant
but
that
at
the
end of
the
journey
the
mat
of
the
cab was soaking with urine and accordingly
the
driver could
not
use his cab for hire until the inside
had
been thoroughly cleaned, particularly as the incident
took place in
the
evening when many ladies using
the
cab
would be wearing long dresses. The learned magistrate
pointed
out
that
in his opinion
the
words 'deface' or 'injure'
meant
inflicting some serious
and
more or less permanent
damage and
that
in this case
the
mat
could
have
been
pJJa
226
THE
JOURNAL
OF CRIMINAL LAW
cleansed
with
a
bucket
of water,
and
he accordingly dis-
missed
the summons
without
calling on
the
defendant.
An application has been made for
the
magistrate
to
state
a case for
the
opinion of
the
High
Court on
this
point
and
this opinion will be awaited with
great
interest
by
all
cab
drivers
and
owners.
A
COMPANY
CHARGED
WITH
OBSTRUCTING
THE
HIGHWAY
Section 72 of
the
Highway Act, 1835, provides amongst
other
matters
that
no person shall
"in
any
way
wilfully
obstruct
the
free passage of
the
highway" on
the
pain
of
rendering himself liable to a
penalty
of 40s. An
unusual
set
of facts was disclosed in a 1prosecution
heard
before
Mr.
Paul
Bennett
at
the
Marlborough
Street
Metropolitan
Magistrates' Court in which alimited company was sum-
moned for an offence
under
the
above section.
In
this case
the
company
had
arranged an exhibition of contemporary
art
in a hall in Oxford
Street
and
had
erected a
statue
of
anude woman on a bombed site adjoining
the
hall
at
the
junction of Oxford
Street
and
another
thoroughfare for
the
purpose of drawing
attention
to
the
exhibition.
From
the
uncommon juxtaposition of
the
parts
of
the
body
the
statue
might
well be calculated
to
arouse
the
interest of
even those who would
not
stop
to
look
at
amore classical
work of
art,
and
this
in fact proved to be
the
case.
Large
crowds collected
and
from time to time
there
was serious
obstruction.
There are, of course, a number of civil cases in which
it
has
been held
that
it
is an actionable nuisance to use
premises adjoining ahighway in such away
that
obstruction
is caused to
the
highway.
The
latest
case in which
this
question has been considered is
that
of Dwyer v. Mansfield
(1946, 2
All
E.R.
247) in which
it
was held
that
the
ob-
struction
to
the
plaintiff's shops caused by a queue which
had
formed
to
buy
scarce goods sold
by
the
defendant
was
not
actionable, as, inter alia,
the
defendant
had
done
nothing wrong or unreasonable
but
had
merely carried
on his essential business in a
proper
way.
In
the
"theatre
cases," e.g., Barber v. Penley (1883, 62 L. T. 662) in which
there
has
been serious obstruction to a plaintiff's premises
by
unruly
crowds,
it
has been held
that
anuisance has been
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