Young v Heatly
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judgment Date | 25 March 1959 |
| Docket Number | No. 14. |
| Date | 25 March 1959 |
| Court | High Court of Justiciary |
HIGH COURT.
Lord Justice-General. Lord Carmont. Lord Russell.
Crime—Breach of the peace—Indecent remarks by teacher to pupil in private room.
A depute headmaster of a technical school was convicted on four charges of conducting himself in an improper manner, making improper remarks to pupils in the school, and committing a breach of the peace. The conduct complained of on each occasion took place in the panel's room in the school, when only he and the pupil to whom the remarks were made were present. The pupils were about sixteen years of age, and the offences were all committed within a period of about seven hours.
Held, in sustaining the conviction, that it is not essential for the constitution of the crime of breach of the peace to produce witnesses who speak to being alarmed or annoyed, provided that the nature of the conduct is so flagrant as to entitle the Court to infer from it that it was calculated to cause alarm and annoyance.
Raffaelli v. Heatly, 1949 J. C. 101, applied.
Crime—Procedure—General conviction on alternative charges—Technicality—Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act, 1954 (2 and 3 Eliz. II, cap. 48), sec. 73.
An accused was charged on a complaint containing four charges each of which charged him with committing a breach of the peace, or alternatively with committing a breach of a local statute. In each charge the facts specified in each alternative were identical. The accused was convicted on each of the charges, but, although the stated case made it clear that these convictions were for breach of the peace, they were recorded merely as convictions on "The first charge," &c.
Held that, as in fact there was no ambiguity as to the meaning of the convictions, the objection to them was merely technical and fell to be repelled in terms of sec. 73 of the Summary Jurisdiction (Scotland) Act, 1954; and conviction sustained.
Edward Sinclair White Young was charged in the Burgh Court at Edinburgh on a complaint at the instance of James Donaldson Heatly, City Prosecutor, which set forth, inter alia:—"About 3P.M., on said date [26th November 1958], in said room [the room used by the accused at the Bristo Technical School, Potterrow, Edinburgh], you did conduct yourself in a disorderly manner, make improper remarks to Dallas Suttie, … 17 years of age, a pupil under your charge, ask him whether he knew that 90 per cent of the boys “flog” themselves off, and that the other 10 per cent who say that they don't do it are liars, ask whether he could deny ever having done anything like that, and tell him that in the Merchant Navy some of the men did it for you, and did commit a breach of the peace; oralternatively you did, time and place last libelled, by making the aforesaid improper remarks to the said Dallas Suttie, use insulting words and behaviour calculated to provoke a breach of the peace; contrary to said section 116 (11) of said Order of 1933" [Edinburgh Corporation Order, 1933].
There were three other charges in similar terms relating to incidents with two other pupils, all occurring in the accused's room, between 1.30P.M. and 7 P.M. on the same day.
The accused was convicted on all the charges and the record of conviction read "The Court found the accused guilty of:—(1) The first charge; (2) the second charge but not to the extent [of certain conduct]; (3) the third charge with the exception...
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