HM Advocate v Cunningham
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judgment Date | 02 July 1963 |
| Docket Number | No. 13. |
| Date | 02 July 1963 |
| Court | High Court of Justiciary |
HIGH COURT.
Lord Justice-General. Lord Justice-Clerk. Lord Carmont.
Procedure—Trial—Special defence—Special defence that accused not responsible on account of incidence of temporary dissociation due to epileptic fugue or other pathological condition—Competency.
A special defence proposed in the following terms "that through-out the period during which the crimes libelled were said to have been committed [the accused] was not responsible for his actings on account of the incidence of temporary dissociation due to an epileptic fugue or other pathological condition," is incompetent, the matter raised therein being relevant only to the question of sentence.
So held in the case of an accused indicted on charges of committing offences against the Road Traffic Act, 1960, secs. 217 (1), 1 and 6 (1).
H. M. Advocate v. Ritchie, 1926 J. C. 45,overruled.
James Cunningham was charged in the following terms:—"On 1st January 1963, (1) you did in Bowmanflat, Larkhall, Parish of Dalserf, Lanarkshire, near No. 3 thereof, take and drive away a motor van without having either the consent of the owner thereof or other lawful authority; Contrary to the Road Traffic Act, 1960, section 217 (1); (2) you did, in Lockhart Street, Stonehouse, Parish of Stonehouse, Lanarkshire, near No. 90 thereof, cause the death of Matthew Dickie Hughes, 28 Glenburn Avenue, Stonehouse, by the driving of said motor van recklessly and at a speed and in a manner which were dangerous to the public having regard to all the circumstances of the case including the nature, condition and use of the road and the amount of traffic which was actually at the time or which might reasonably have been expected to be there and by causing said motor van to mount a footpath on which said Matthew Dickie Hughes was walking along with Robert Thomson Hamilton, 12 Candermill Road, Stonehouse, James Cosgrove Hamilton, 47 Camnethan Street, Stonehouse, and Robert Dickie, 121 Camnethan Street, Stonehouse, and to collide with them and knock them down whereby said Matthew Dickie Hughes was so severely injured that he died immediately thereafter: contrary to said Act, section 1; and (3) you were, when driving said motor van, unfit to drive through drink or drugs: contrary to said Act, section 6 (1)."
At the pleading diet in the Sheriff Court at Hamilton on 31st May 1963 the panel pleaded not guilty and lodged a special defence in the following terms:—"M'Ilwain for the panel states that the panel pleads “not guilty” and especially and...
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