Simpson v H. M. Advocate
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judgment Date | 11 October 1951 |
| Date | 11 October 1951 |
| Docket Number | No. 1. |
| Court | High Court of Justiciary |
HIGH COURT.
Lord Justice-General. Lord Carmont. Lord Russell.
Evidence—Theft—Possession of goods recently stolen—Possession by servant acting on master's instructions—Servant charged with theft—Onus—Master and Servant.
Procedure—TrialJudge's charge—Duty of presiding Judge when reviewing evidence.
At the trial of an accused, charged with the theft of some scrap metal, evidence was led to the effect that shortly after the theft he had taken the stolen metal to a dealer, to whom he had sold it. Further evidence was to the effect that the accused was then in the employment of another dealer, on whose instructions he was acting. The presiding Sheriff-substitute, in his charge to the jury, did not refer to the specialty created by the fact that the accused's possession of the metal was in the capacity of servant, but treated the case as a typical one for the application of the doctrine of recent possession. The accused was convicted of the theft.
Held that, as the accused's participation in the handling of the stolen metal was that of a servant, the Sheriff-substitute was not entitled to present the case to the jury as one in which there was an onus on the accused to rebut the inference of guilt arising from possession of recently stolen goods; and conviction quashed.
Fox v. Patterson, 1948 J. C. 104, commented on.
Observations on the duty of a presiding Judge when reviewing and commenting on evidence.
Alexander Hastings Simpson was charged in the Sheriff Court at Glasgow on an indictment at the instance of His Majesty's Advocate which, after setting forth two contraventions of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act, 1913 (to which the accused pled guilty), further set forth that "(3) you did, on 23rd or 24th May 1951, at the Germiston Carriage and Waggon Works occupied by the British Railways (Scottish Executive), Petershill Road, Glasgow, force open a lockfast box and steal therefrom 48 brass bushes."
The accused pleaded not guilty to the third charge, but on 13th August 1951, after a trial before the Sheriff-substitute (Inglis) and a jury, the jury by a majority returned a verdict of guilty as libelled, and on that charge the accused was sentenced to six months' imprisonment. On each of the other charges the Sheriff-substitute imposed a fine.
Thereafter the accused presented a note of application for leave to appeal against his conviction on the third charge, in which he stated,inter alia, the following reason of...
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