In the Irish Courts
| Date | 01 January 1957 |
| Published date | 01 January 1957 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201835702100108 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
In the Irish Courts
SUPREME
COURT
IN
EIRE
MANSLAUGHTER AT SEA
The People (A.G.) v. Robert
J.
Thomas
THE appeal of Robert J.
Thomas
to
the
Supreme
Court
against his conviction of manslaughter, as confirmed by
the
Court
of Criminal Appeal, raised two importantlegal questions,
the one relating to the proof required in the absence of
the
production ofadead body
and
the
other relating to the court's
jurisdiction in
the
case of a death at sea.
The
prisoner
had
been charged with
the
murder, and convicted of the man-
slaughter, of one Humphries, in the following circumstances.
The
two men, who were shipmates
and
friends, came off an
ocean-going ship in Liverpool
and
spent the day drinking
together; they
then
joined a ship travelling by night from
Liverpool to
Dublin
and
registered in Dublin.
In
the course
of
the
crossing they were engaged in a drunken fight
and
Humphries disappeared overboard into arough sea some
fifteen miles off
the
Welsh coast.
He
was seen in the water,
but
asearch by two ships failed to locate him. Although he
was a strong swimmer, it was unlikely
that
he could swim
fifteen miles, in
that
sea
and
in his condition, even if he had
known the direction in which
the
Welsh coast lay. Moreover,
he had not been heard of since
that
date, although he had
hitherto corresponded regularly with,
and
had sent money to,
his mother. Notwithstanding this,
Thomas's
counsel urged
that
the
minimum legal requirement of proof of death had
not
been adduced by
the
prosecution
and
that
the
trial
judge
was
not, therefore, entitled to leave it to
the
jury
to infer death.
He
was granted acertificate of leave to appeal on this
ground
and
he relied of course
upon
Hale's famous dictum (Pleas
of
the Crown, Vol. 2,
p.
290) to the effect
that
he
"would
never
convict any person of
murder
or manslaughter unless the fact
were proved to be done or at least
the
body found
dead".
But,
as
Lord
Goddard
C.].
has more recently remarked in R. v.
51
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