In the Irish Courts
| Date | 01 October 1951 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201835101500406 |
| Published date | 01 October 1951 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Tn
the Irish Courts
REPUBLIC
OF
IRELAND
SUPREME
COURT
NEED
FOR STRICT PROOF OF FALSE
PRETENCES
The People (A.-G.) v. Gilmore &Cunningham
"
IN
an
indictment for obtaining money
by
false pre-
tences,
the
pretences
must
be distinctly set
out
(R.
v. Mason (2
T.R.
581))
and
at
the
trial
they
must be proved
as laid." This dictum of LordEllenborough C.]. was
uttered
in R. v. Plestroie (1808, 1 Camp 494), in which
the
Crown
attempted
to support an indictment charging
the
defendant
with
having said
that
he
had
paid
money into
the
Bank,
upon evidence
that
he
had
said,
"The
money has been paid
at
the
Bank".
The variance was held to be fatal, for
"an
assertion
that
money has been
paid
into
the
Bank, is
very
differentfrom an assertion
that
it
had
been
paid
into
the
Bank
by
aparticular individual". This principle has now been
accepted
by
the
Irish Supreme Court, in The People (A.-G.)
v. Gilmore & Cunningham (85
I.L.T.R.
99), though
it
was
necessary to overrule
the
Court of Criminal Appeal in so
doing.
In
this case,
the
defendants were guilty of 'switch-
ing'
the
dogs in a greyhound race,
but
the
prosecution were
not content to allege
that
another dog
ran
in
the
place of
the
dog
named:
they
endeavoured to prove (in
the
words
happily chosen
by
the
learned
trial
judge)
'a
double event',
viz.,
that
the
dog which
ran
was not what
it
was alleged
to
be
and
that
it
was in fact another named dog. The first
defendant was charged on two counts of obtaining money
by
false pretences
and
one count of an offence contrary
to
s. 32
(1)
of
the
Larceny Act, 1916
and
one of conspiracy to
defraud;
the
second defendant was charged
with
con-
spiracyonly.
The
essence of
the
charges was contained in
the
allegation
that
they
committed
the
fraud
"by
falsely
pretending
that
acertain greyhound known as Red
Jack
"0
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