Manuel v H. M. Advocate
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judgment Date | 25 June 1958 |
| Date | 25 June 1958 |
| Docket Number | No. 9. |
| Court | High Court of Justiciary |
HIGH COURT.
Lord Justice-General. Lord Carmont. Lord Sorn.
Review—Appeal—Competency of proceedings—Absence of appellant after intimating desire to be present—Appeal not confined to questions of law—Appellant fit to attend but expressing no desire to be present at hearing of appeal—Criminal Appeal (Scotland) Act, 1926 (16 and 17 Geo. V, cap. 15), sec. 7 (1).
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Sec. 7 (1) of the Criminal Appeal (Scotland) Act, 1926, provides as follows:—"An appellant, notwithstanding that he is in custody, shall be entitled to be present if he desires it, on the hearing of his appeal, except where the appeal is on some ground involving a question of law alone, but, in that case and on an application for leave to appeal and on any proceedings preliminary or incidental to an appeal, shall not be entitled to be present, except where it is provided by Act of Adjournal that he shall have the right to be present, or where the Court gives him leave to be present."
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An accused person who had been convicted, inter alia, of six capital murders and one murder appealed against these convictions on a number of grounds, including the ground that the verdict on one of the charges in the indictment was contrary to the evidence. In making his application for leave to appeal the appellant had intimated in writing his desire to be present at the hearing of the appeal. At the calling of the appeal, counsel for the appellant informed the Court that he had seen the appellant and advised him, in his own interest, not to be present, and that thereafter the appellant had expressed no desire to be present.
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Held that the appeal could competently be heard in the absence of the appellant.
Evidence—Sufficiency—Corroboration—Confession of panel—Actings of panel after making confession—Whether confession corroborated by actings—Admissibility of confession—Inducement by police.
During the trial of a panel on a number of charges, including capital murder and murder, evidence was led of certain statements attributed to the panel. One statement made by the panel amounted to a confession of capital murder in which reference was made to the disposal of the body of the victim and of a shoe belonging to the victim in two different places in a certain field. Thereafter the panel, accompanied by police officers, went to that field. The panel there indicated certain places where digging and search revealed respectively the body of the victim and a shoe belonging to her. It was contended that this confession was not corroborated by the panel's subsequent actings, and that, in any event, all his confessions had been obtained by the police by means of an inducement consisting of promises not to compromise his family and to release his father from custody.
Held that the actings of the panel subsequent to the confession constituted sufficient corroboration of the confession, and that, as there was no evidence of inducement, all the confessions were admissible in evidence.
Chalmers v. H. M. Advocate, 1954 J. C. 66,distinguished.
Peter Thomas Anthony Manuel was tried in the High Court at Glasgow on 12th May 1958 and fourteen subsequent days, before Lord Cameron and a jury, on an indictment at the instance of Her Majesty's Advocate which set forth that "you did (1) on 2nd January 1956, in Capelrig Plantation, East Kilbride, Lanarkshire, near the fifth teeing ground of the East Kilbride Golf Course, assault Anne Kneilands, aged 17 years, daughter of and residing with John Patrick Kneilands, at The Stables, Calderwood Estate, East Kilbride, and did strike her repeatedly on the head with a piece of iron or other similar instrument, take off her knickers, rob her of a watch, a pair of ear-rings, a French coin, a belt and a handbag, the contents of which are to the prosecutor unknown, and you did murder her, and such is capital murder within the meaning of the Homicide Act, 1957, section 5 (1) (a) as applied by section 16 of said Act; (2) between 12th and 15th September 1956, both dates inclusive, break into the house then occupied by Henry James Platt at 14 Douglas Drive, Bothwell, Lanarkshire, and there (a) steal an electric razor, a chronograph, a micrometer, a slide gauge, two calipers, a punch, two cutters, a box of drills, a wrench, a scribing block, a set of blocks, two lenses, a ring, a watch chain, a broken signet ring, a pair of cuff links, a watch and £2, Os. 6½d. of money and (b) maliciously discharge a loaded firearm and damage a mattress; (3) between 15th and 17th September 1956, both dates inclusive, break into the house then occupied by Mary Ann Hargrave Martin and Margaret Martin at 18 Fennsbank Avenue, High Burnside, Rutherglen, Lanarkshire, and there steal two finger rings, four pairs of nylon stockings and 6s. of money; (4) on 17th September 1956, break into the house then occupied by William Watt at 5 Fennsbank Avenue, High Burnside, Rutherglen, Lanarkshire, and there (a) assault Marion Hunter M'Donald Reid or Watt, residing there, and did discharge at her a loaded firearm and shoot her in the head, and you did murder her; (b) assault Margaret Hunter Reid or Brown, 461 King Street, Stenhousemuir, Stirlingshire, and did discharge at her a loaded firearm and shoot her in the head, and you did murder her; and (c)assault Vivienne Isabella Reid Watt, aged 16 years, residing there, and did strike her...
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Indexes
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