Recent Judicial Decisions
| Published date | 01 November 1961 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X6103400608 |
| Date | 01 November 1961 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
Beeent
Judicial
Decisions
TELL
THE
POLICE: MISPRISION OF FELONY
Sykes
v. Director
of
Public Prosecutions
The offence of misprision of felony is not obsolete.
It
is an
indictable misdemeanour at common law, and a person is guilty
of
the crime if knowing that a felony has been committed he fails
to disclose his knowledge to those responsible for the preservation
of the peace, be they constables or justices, within a reasonable
time and having a reasonable opportunity for so doing. This
proposition now has the support of the House of Lords in this
recent case ([1961] 3 All E.R. 33) in which an appeal against a
conviction of this offence was dismissed.
The appellant was convicted of misprision of felony in that,
knowing that others had received stolen firearms, he unlawfully
concealed the commission of the offence. The firearms were stolen
from a U.S. Air Force station and arrangements made for their
sale. Before the examining magistrates the appellant had been
also charged with receiving the firearms but that charge was not
pursued. He was also charged with attempting to sell them but
the jury acquitted him of that charge. The scope of the charge
of
misprision of felony is wider than either of those two charges.
The appellant argued in vain that the concealment necessary
to constitute the offence of misprision involved or implied some
positive act on the part
of
the accused.
It
was put beyond all doubt by the House of Lords that the
concealment necessary to constitute the offence does
not
involve
a positive act; a mere omission to inform the authorities of a
felony, of which the accused knows, is sufficient to justify a con-
viction. Further, it is unnecessary to show that the concealment
was converted by the accusedinto a source of emolument to himself.
November-December 1961 433
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