House of Lords
| Published date | 01 January 1967 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201836703100106 |
| Date | 01 January 1967 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
House of Lords
IMPRISONMENT FOR COMMON LAW MISDEMEANOUR: CONSPIRACY
Verrier v. Director
of
Public Prosecutions
"THE
general and ordinary punishment by the common law,
in respect of allmisdemeanours, punishable by indictment
or information, is fine or imprisonment, or both, the amount
of which is altogether discretionary."
This
statement appears
in the Seventh Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners on
Criminal Law (1843, p. 104). "By the provisions of Magna
Carta and the Bill of Rights judges are restrained from giving
inordinate punishment;
but
the common law has not drawn a
limit to the punishment which may be inflicted for a mis-
demeanour" (per Bramwell, L.J., in
R.
v. Castro (1880) 5
Q.B.D. 490, 509). These old principles were re-affirmed by
the House of Lords (Lords Reid, Morris of Borth-y-Gest,
Pearce, Upjohn and Pearson) in Verrier o, D.P.P. (19663
All
E.R. 568) when a term of imprisonment of seven years for
conspiracy was, in the circumstances of the case, upheld.
The
conspiracy was a conspiracy to defraud, there being
only one count.
The
fraud was to induce an insurance com-
pany that had issued a policy of insurance on the life of a
named person to pay the insurance money by falsely pretend-
ing that the person had died at sea.
The
maximum punish-
ment on one charge of obtaining money by false pretences is
five years' imprisonment.
The
appellant argued that seven
years was an unlawful sentence, or at least an improper one,
and that it should have been five years at the most or, more
rightly, two years.
In
the speech of Lord Pearson (with which
the other members of the House agreed) this contention was
rejected.
The
Court of Criminal Appeal had upheldthe original
sentence, stressing the fact that there had been
"a
bold and
wicked plot, cunningly conceived."
Blackstone and other writers have stated that at common
law there is a discretionary power regarding the length and
amount of such punishments as imprisonment and fines.
In
39
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