Yeudall v William Baird & Company
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judgment Date | 12 March 1925 |
| Date | 12 March 1925 |
| Docket Number | No. 9. |
| Court | High Court of Justiciary |
Lord Justice-General, Lord Hunter, Lord Sands.
Summary Procedure—Complaint—Modus—Statutory Offences—Mines Regulation Acts—Failure to provide adequate ventilation in coal mine—Specification of modus—Fair notice—Complaint following words of statute contravened—Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act, 1908 (8 Edw. VII. cap. 65), sec. 19 (1).
The Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act, 1908, by sec. 19, which deals with the form of the complaint, enacts:—‘(1) The description of any offence in the words of the statute or order contravened, or in similar words, shall be sufficient.’
In proceedings under the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act, 1908, against the owners and officials of a coal mine for failing to provide adequate ventilation in a particular part of the mine, the complaint, following the words of sec. 29 (1) of the Coal Mines Act, 1911, charged the accused that they ‘did each fail to produce an adequate amount of ventilation to dilute and render harmless inflammable gases in the foresaid part of said colliery to such an extent that the said part of said colliery was in a fit state for working therein.’
Held that, although there might not in all cases be fair notice to the accused if the complaint merely described the offence in the words of the statute alleged to have been contravened without further specification of the modus, in the present case sufficient notice had been given; and objection to the relevancy of the complaint repelled.
William Baird & Company, Limited, owners of Gartshore Colliery, Twechar, Dumbartonshire, and the general manager, the assistant general manager, the manager, and the under manager of the colliery, were charged in the Sheriff Court at Dumbarton at the instance of Hugh Laughlan Yeudall, Procurator-fiscal of Dumbartonshire, with consent of the Board of Trade, on a complaint which set forth that, between 26th and 28th July 1923, in Gartshore Colliery No. 3, ‘in that part of a lodgment for water which had been driven from the road known as South Mine Road between a cross wall at the outer end thereof and said South Mine Road,’ you ‘did each fail to produce an adequate amount of ventilation to dilute and render harmless inflammable gases in the foresaid part of said colliery to such an extent that the said part of said colliery was in a fit state for working therein; contrary to sections 29 (1),*
75, and 101 (2) of the said Coal Mines Act, 1911, and to the General Regulations, dated July 10, 1913, Regulation 41, made under section 86 of said Coal Mines Act, 1911, whereby you are each liable to the penalties set forth in section 101 of said Act.’
The accused raised various objections to the complaint, in particular (Obj. 2 (b)) that it was irrelevant, in respect that it was lacking in specification as regards the modus of the offence.
On 3rd November 1924 the...
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