House of Lords
| DOI | 10.1177/002201836803200404 |
| Published date | 01 October 1968 |
| Date | 01 October 1968 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
House
of
Lords
POSSESSION
OF
DRUGS
WITHOUT
KNOWING
Warner
v.
Metropolitan
Police
Commissioner
WHEN Miss Sweet's counsel applied for leave to appeal to the
House of Lords
"in
the light
of"
the House's decision in
Warner
u,
Metropolitan
Police
Commissioner
(1967, 2W.L.R. 1303; 1968, 2All
E.R. 356), Lord Parker C.J. sadly remarked,
"In
the light,
if
any".
And
it
must be confessed
that
their Lordships' decision raises as
many questions as it answers.
It
is the more remarkable
that
Lord
Morris should have chosen the occasion to reassert the proposition
that
"in
criminal matters it is important to have clarity and
certainty"•
It
will be recalled
that
the defendant was convicted of an
offence against S.I
of
the Drugs (Prevention
of
Misuse) Act 1964,
which enacts
that
"it
shall not be lawful for a person to have in his
possession a substance for the time being specified in the Schedule to
this Act". He
had
been stopped by a police officer who found, in the
back
of
his car, two parcels, one containing scent
and
the other
dangerous drugs. He
had
stated
that
he
had
collected the parcels in
the belief
that
they
both
contained scent. At the trial, the
jury
were
directed
that
the prosecution
had
to prove
that
the drugs were
under
his control,
but
that
if
he
had
control
of
a box which in fact turned
out
to be full
of
drugs, his ignorance
of
this fact was merely a miti-
gation of the offence.
The
Court
of
Appeal upheld his conviction
(see P.32
of
this
JOURNAL),
but
gave leave to appeal on the question
whether
"a
defendant is deemed to be in possession
of
adangerous
substance when to his knowledge he is in physical possession of the
substance
but
is unaware of its true
nature".
The
House
of
Lords
were unanimous upon the lack
of
merits
of
the appeal on the facts
and
all concurred in upholding the conviction. Varying views were,
however, expressed
upon
two questions raised by the appeal, namely,
(i) whether the statute
had
created an absolute offence in the sense
of one capable of being committed without aguilty mind, by the
mere doing of the prohibited
act;
and
(ii) what was the nature
of
the
possession required to be established for the purposes
of
the Act.
The
majority
of
the House concluded
that
the offence
of
257
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