R v Reid
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE CAIRNS |
| Judgment Date | 16 June 1972 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1972] EWCA Crim J0616-3 |
| Docket Number | No. 4399/A/71 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Criminal Division) |
| Date | 16 June 1972 |
[1972] EWCA Crim J0616-3
Lord Justice Cairns
Lord Justice Stephenson
and
Mr. Justice Griffiths
No. 4399/A/71
IN THE COURT OF APPEAL
CRIMINAL DIVISION
Royal Courts of Justice
MR. W. REES-DAVIES appeared on behalf of the Appellant.
MR. C. PURCHAS appeared on behalf of the Crown.
The Appellant was convicted on the 16th September, 1971 at Lewes Assizes before Mr. Commissioner Adie-Shepherd on four counts of an indictment, the fourth count being for kidnapping his wife. He was sentenced to concurrent sentences of which the longest was three years, and a twelve months' suspended sentence was put into operation consecutively.
He applied for leave to appeal against conviction on all counts and against his sentences. The single Judge gave him leave to appeal against the conviction for kidnapping and against the sentences, but refused leave to appeal against conviction on the other counts. He renewed his application on those counts.
One ground of appeal on Count 4 was that a man could not be held guilty of kidnapping his wife. When the matter came before this Court last Tuesday it became evident that it was impracticable then to deal with any of the issues except this particular ground of appeal. Accordingly argument was heard on that issue which is one of law on which leave to appeal was not needed and for the rest leave was given to amend the notice of appeal, and the appeal and applications were stood over to be heard at a later date.
The conclusion reached on the point of law was that it is an offence at common law for a man to take and carry away his wife against her will. Two subsidiary points were argued: first that the offence of kidnapping involves some secreting of the victim; and, secondly, that if a husband can ever be held guilty of kidnapping his wife it can only be so if they were living separately at the time.
This Court decided against both of those contentions. We now give reasons for our conclusions.
It is convenient to take first the question of whether some secreting or concealment of the victim is necessary to constitute the offence of kidnapping. Counsel for the Appellant referred to Paragraph 2801 of Archbold's Criminal Pleading, Evidence and Practice 37th Edition, which under the heading "Kidnapping" has the sentence: "The stealing and carrying away, a secreting of any person of any age or either sex against the will of such person ….. is an offence at common law".
It is, however, quite clear that the word 'a' in that sentence is a misprint for "or'. That this is so is evident because the authority cited is Russell on Crime 12th Edition, Volume 1, page 692, where the wording is exactly the same except that the word 'or' and not 'a' is used. Russell cites 1 East Pleas of the Crown, 429, where the statement is "The most aggravated species of false imprisonment is the stealing and carrying away or secreting of some person, sometimes called kidnapping, which is an offence at common law".
We can find no reason in authority or in principle why the crime should not be complete when the person is seized and carried away, or why kidnapping should be regarded, as was urged by counsel, as a continuing offence involving the concealment of the person seized.
As to the question of whether a husband commits the offence when he takes and carries away his wife against her will there is no English authority directly in point.
We were referred to some ancient cases such as Re Cochran (1840) 8 Dowling, 630, where it was held that a husband in order to prevent his wife from eloping could legally confine her within his own dwelling.
But all such conceptions of a husband's rights were swept away by the Court of Appeal in R. v. Jackson, 1891 1 Queen's Bench, 671, where it was held that even in order to enforce a decree of restitution of conjugal rights a husband could not keep his wife in confinement.
Next reliance was placed on R. v. Miller, 1954 2 All England...
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