Recent Judicial Decisions
| Published date | 01 July 1972 |
| Date | 01 July 1972 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0032258X7204500308 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
questions, enabled to contact the "men on the job" as well as public
relations officers who may lack first-hand knowledge.
What I have written relates mainly to the press and
space
prevents me from discussing other ways of making contact with
the public through exhibitions, open days, booklets, and meetings
with councillors and officers. But I hope I have written enough
to show that there is a vast field for expanding relations between
local authorities and those they represent and that the proposed
legislation by-passes the most important of these and may hamper
the very cause it seeks to serve.
PROFESSOR
J. C.
WOOD,
LL.M.
The University of Sheffield
Legal Correspondent of The Police Journal
RECENT JUDICIAL DECISIONS
ROAD TRAFFIC
In 1970 a new series of Road Traffic Reports was started. Now
in its third year it provides over 100 reported cases annually. Only
aproportion of these cases find their way into established reports
- All E.R.,
W.L.R,
J.P. - and even fewer are thought worthy of
inclusion in the Law Reports themselves. Until the establishment of
the new series reference had often to be traced in journals such as
the Criminal Law Review. The weight of case law is undoubtedly
formidable. Thus Boney in 1971 (written August 1970) cites 84
cases, the largest part of which followed the
Road
Safety Act 1967
on which he was writing. The flood since then has by no means
dried up.
The cases fall into three categories. Some have very important
impact on the law generally, or upon a particular area of the law.
In this category cases recently noted here spring to mind.
R.
v.
Gosney [1971] 2 Q.B. 674 on absolute liability is of potentially
enormous importance; R. v. Dodge [1971] 3
W.L.R
366 is an im-
portant step in the seemingly never ending search for a clear dis-
tinction between fraud and forgery. Other cases make important
but restricted clarifications of some major point in a more restricted
area. The cases discussing res ipsa loquitur in driving prosecu-
tions illustrate this. Rabjohns v. Burgar [1971]
RT.R
234; Batty
v. Davey [1972] Crim.
L.R
48 and Wright v. Wenlock
[1971]
RT.R.
228. So far none of these cases has filtered through
223 July 1972
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