Notes on Recent Crime
| Date | 01 October 1933 |
| Published date | 01 October 1933 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X3300600401 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
THE
POLICE
JOURNAL
VOL.
VI.
N0.4
Notes
on
Recent Crime
OCTOBER
1933
AYEAR or two ago a conflict arose between the Court of
Criminal Appeal and the Court of Appeal as to the law
of blackmail, the effect of which was to make it a criminal
offence for a trade society to take money, in lieu of blacklisting
an offender against its rules, while the Court of Appeal laid it
down that there was not even a civil wrong, and so the law
stands to this day. An even more curious conflict has
just
arisen between the Court of Criminal Appeal and the Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council. On July
jrd,
1933, the
Court of Criminal Appeal, in dismissing the appeal of a
Welshman convicted and sentenced at the Merionethshire
Quarter Sessions for sheep stealing, laid it down that affidavits
by two jurymen that they did not understand English (which
it was desired to
put
in evidence), were inadmissible, as in-
fringing the rule that an Appeal Court cannot receive evidence
from jurymen as to what was passing in their minds or as to
what took place in the jury-room.
The
Privy Court later in
the same month took the exactly contrary view in an appeal
from India, where the appellants had been convicted of
murder at Patna Sessions, and one of the
jury
had insufficient
knowledge of English to follow the proceedings.
The
High
Court in India had found on evidence from the juryman that
this was correct and all the convictions were quashed.
Lord
Atkin said, ' Finality was a good thing,
but
justice was a
better,' and declared that averdict was a nullity where it was
proved, by whatever means, that a
juror
was under a disability
for performing his duties.
The
result is that the law is
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