Quarterly Summary
| Published date | 01 January 1965 |
| Date | 01 January 1965 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002201836502900114 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Quarterly Summary
(Extended reports
of
some
of
the
cases
here
summarised will be
given in our next
issue
.-Editor)
JUDGES' RULES, R. 2
R. v. White
A police officer went to a garage where he found the
appellant standing round some packing cases.
These
were
later identified as stolen property
and
the
men
were charged
with receiving. When he saw
them
at
the
garage the officer
asked
them
what they were doing there.
Their
answers to this
question (which was
put
without acaution) were held by the
Court
of Criminal Appeal to be admissible in evidence as there
had been no breach of rule 2of the Judges' Rules. At
the
time when the question was
put
there was no evidence
that
any of the persons present was guilty of any offence.
The
Court
said
that
amere general question like that
put
was never
intended by the judges to be a question which could
not
be
put
except after caution. (108 Sol. J. 657.)
MISDIRECTION
AS TO RECEIVING
R. v. Tomblin
The
only evidence against the appellant on a charge of
receiving a safe was a statement which he made to the police
to the effect
that
he had told other
men
about a locked safe,
taken
them
to it, and got some tools for them when they were
trying to open
it;
he denied having touched it himself.
The
Court
of Criminal Appeal thought that, on a proper direction,
these acts might have been found by a
jury
to amount to
joint
possession of the safe by the appellant. But
the
jury
were
directed
that
if he had attacked the safe and tried to open it, it
would be evidence of receiving. As there was no evidence
whatever
that
he had done that, there was a misdirection of
the
jury
and the conviction was quashed. (August rSth, 1964.)
77
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