Recent Judicial Decisions
| Published date | 01 April 1947 |
| Date | 01 April 1947 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X4702000203 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
88
THE
POLICE
JOURNAL
being able to bring the evidence before the court disregard of the Rules
may, in certain circumstances, not matter.
This
is
not
to minimise the
importance of observing the Rules from the point of view of general
Police practice and the interests of the public. But questions of the
admissibility of evidence are often technical and answered by the
ordinary criminal law embedded in decided cases and statutes.
In
fact
the topic of the admissibility of evidence is only referred to once, in
express terms, in the whole of the Rules.
This
is in Rule 6 which states
that
" a statement made by a prisoner before there is time to caution
him is not rendered inadmissible in evidence merely by reason of no
caution having been given,
but
in such a case he should be cautioned as
soon as possible."
It
is significant
that
the only express reference to the
question of admissibility of evidence is in a sentence which states that,
in certain circumstances, non-observance of a rule does not make a
statement inadmissible.
Recent Judicial Decisions
THE
PRACTICE OF
REMANDING
IN
CUSTODY AFTER
CONVICTION
PENDING
SENTENCE
R. v. Easterling
AFT ER being convicted at West Kent sessions of receiving two car-
pets the appellant in R. v. Easterling (62
T.L.R.
630) was remanded
in custody after conviction, sentence being postponed until the next
sessions. Before the postponed sentence was pronounced he appealed
to the Court of Criminal Appeal. Why quarter sessions took
that
course
did
not
appear,
but
the Court of Criminal Appeal said
that
it could
not
approve of the practice.
The
sessions would be formally adjourned,
which meant
that
the appellant would be remanded in custody until the
next sessions, which would not be held for another few weeks or
months. No doubt, if there had been no appeal, when he came up at
the
next sessions the court would have taken into account the fact
that
he had been waiting several weeks in custody before being sentenced.
The
Court of Criminal Appeal also appreciated the fact
that
aprisoner
will sometimes offer, after being convicted, to take steps to restore the
property stolen, or to give information of use to the prosecution.
The
Court might then, perhaps, consider
that
to be a good reason for post-
poning sentence and decide to see what does happen between
then
and
the next sessions. Quarter sessions might say to themselves
that
the
sentence which they will ultimately pass in a given case will in any
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