R v Daniel Campbell

JurisdictionEngland & Wales
Judgment Date01 January 1845
Date01 January 1845
CourtHigh Court

English Reports Citation: 174 E.R. 722

IN THE COURT OF QUEEN'S BENCH, COMMON PLEAS AND EXCHEQUER

Regina
and
Daniel Campbell

[82] regina v. daniel campbell (D C. was indicted for manslaughter, in killing " a certain woman, whose name to the jurors is unknown." D C cohabited with the woman, and sometimes said- that she was his wife, and sometimes that she was not , and none of the witnesses had heard her called by any name :-Held, that, if the jury were satisfied that the deceased was not the wife of the prisoner, and that the name of the deceased could not be ascertained by any reasonable diligence, the description of the deceased was proper , but that, if the jury should think that the deceased wad the wife of the prisoner, the description was bad, for, although there was no evidence of her Christian name, she was entitled to the surname of C , as being that of he? husband ) Manslaughter -The fust count of the indictment charged the prisoner with having killed Catherine Macginmss, by beating and striking her In the second count the deceased was described as Catherine Campbell, and in the third count, " as a certain woman whose name to the jurors is unknown." There was no evidence of the name of the deceased being that which was stated in either the first or second counts ; but it appeared that, on Wednesday, the 15th of November, 1842, the prisoner came to the Coach and Horses public-house, at Oxford, and asked Mrs. Guise, the landlady, if he could have lodgings " for himself and his wife" ; that she said that he could, and that, on the same afternoon, the prisoner and deceased came to her house, and remained there, living together as husband and wife till the following Saturday, the 19th, when the prisoner went away, and the deceased went upstairs, and lay on her bed, complaining of her head, and died the next day. Neither of these witnesses knew the name of the deceased, or ever heard her called by any name , but it was proved by Mr. Lucas, the city marshal at Oxford, that, when he took the prisoner into custody, he asked the prisoner if he had a wife in Oxford, and the prisoner said that he had , and that, on his, the marshal's, saying she was dead, the prisoner replied, " She is not my wife , she is a woman I have been travelling with for the last eight months " Brskine, J.-I...

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1 cases
  • R v Nhleko
    • South Africa
    • Invalid date
    ...South African case in point, where a person has been charged with murdering an unknown person, there has been a body; see R v Campbell, 1 Car. & Kir. 82. Sir F Matthew Hale required more than the usual minimum standard of proof in criminal cases to establish the corpus delicti in cases of m......

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