Notes on Recent Crime
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3500800401 |
| Published date | 01 October 1935 |
| Date | 01 October 1935 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
THE
POLICE
JOURNAL
VOL.
VIII.
NO.4-
OCTOBER-DECEMBER,
1935
Notes on Recent Crime
THE
House of Lords in Maxwell's case decided that an
accused could not be cross-examined, where he had
put
in his good character, about a previous acquittal by a jury.
The
Court of Criminal Appeal in an indecent assault case
against a schoolmaster, named Wadey, have quashed a convic-
tion because the accused, who had
put
in his good character,
was cross-examined about charges which had been dismissed
in the police-court.
The
principle is obviously the same.
The
Lord Chief Justice
said:
"It
is increasingly evident
to me that there are some members of the Bar who do not
know that one of the primary duties of counsel entrusted
with the public task of prosecuting accused persons is to be
fair to the accused."
In
the case of private prosecutions,
as this one was, this warning is particularly appropriate.
Mr. Claud Mullins, Metropolitan Police Magistrate,
sentenced a young woman of 18, who had
run
away from
home and was going under a false name as " Peggy
Blonde",
to six months' imprisonment for obtaining credit of
IS.
8d.
by false pretences. She was starving and had eaten a meal,
for which she had not the money to pay.
It
was her
first offence, but her parents told the police that she was
"lazy
and a
liar".
The
magistrate thought she needed
discipline and gave her six months, so that she could get
modified Borstal treatment. Sir Percival Clarke, Chairman
of London Sessions, in allowing her appeal against sentence
and binding her over,
said:
"The
Bench cannot conceive
what Court could have given such a sentence as six months'
imprisonment for such a first offence by a girl of that age.
D
3~
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