The Epping Forest Abortion Burial
| DOI | 10.1177/0032258X5703000105 |
| Date | 01 January 1957 |
| Published date | 01 January 1957 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
26
THE
POLlCE
JOURNAL
days, other than aSaturday, to cope with pressure of work.
The Lord Justice General (Lord Clyde), who gave the leading
opinion, summed up the whole question in the case in these
words-
whether the words
"on
two days other than Saturday in any week"
could or could not include a Sunday, and then went on to say,
"The
word 'week' which occurs in section 93 is defined in this Act by section
152 as meaning the period between midnight on Saturday night
and
midnight on the succeeding Saturday night.
It
therefore includes the
Sunday as well as the other days of the week.
If
the legislature had
wished to exclude Sunday work from the exemption conferred by
section 93 it would have been easy
to
have done so, and, in my view,
by using the words 'in any week' and defining week as including a
Sunday the legislature must have contemplated that activities such as
those in the present case could be permitted by the exception. I am
confirmed in this view by the contrast between the language of section
93(1) and the language of the immediately preceding section 92(1).
For
in the latter sub-section the words used are not two days,
but
two
weekdays, clearly thereby excluding a Sunday from being a permissible
day.
The Epping Forest Abortion Burial
R. v.
French
et al.
By KEITH SIMPSON, M.D.
DURING the afternoon of 29th October, 1955, an Air Ministry
PIC. and a youth of 15 who were strolling in Epping Forest,
not far from the Wake Arms, saw a white shoe protruding from the
leafy soil
and
found, four feet away from it, some decomposing flesh
just showing among the leaves. They called the Waltham Abbey
Police, and, since there was no doubt that it was a buried body
that
had been found, C.LD. Officers under Detective Superintendent S.
Jackson cordoned off the area, and a "crime team" started to disinter
with the great care that pays so well in such cases, recording each stage
by photography. A sprig of dead hawthorn and a branch of holly tree,
more recently broken off,were stuck in the slight mound of the
"tomb"
and, whilst the earth and leaves were being gently turned over into
rubber sheets so as to facilitate later search, a yellow "Bruynzeel"
pencil of Dutch manufacture came into view: it was an important
clue-dropped
out
of the pocket of someone leaning over the body
during the secret burial.
Gradually the body was exposed, lying on its back at a depth of only
two or three inches.
It
was.a woman of 30 to 35, dressed in a muddied
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