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CURRENT LAW DIGEST SELECTED
All references to dates relate to
The Ti:nes
newspaper.
In reading these cases note should be taken of the
differences in English and Irish statute law.
Arbitration
An order enabling an English company to enforce an arbi-
trators' non-speaking award of £35,855 against a Rumanian
state company for non-delivery of a raw beet sugar consign-
ment from Rumania was made by Mr. Justice Mocatta.
Prodexport State Company for Foreign Trade v E.D.&F.
Man Ltd.; Family Division; 13/7/1972.
Contract
Before Lord Denning, the Master of the Rolls, Lord Justice
Phillimore and Lord Justice Cairns. Judgments delivered
July 3rd.
Where a contract imports the RIBA conditions, sums certi-
fied by the architects as due for completed work must be
passed on to subsubcontractors for work done; and the sub-
contractors cannot deduct from a claim for those sums amounts
said to be due for putting right the allegedly defective work
done by the subsubcontractors.
Carten Horsley (Engineers) Ltd. and Others v Dawnays Ltd.;
Court of Appeal; 4/7/1972.
Hire Contract
Before Lord Widgery, the Lord Chief Justice, Mr. Justice
Melford Stevenson and Mr. Justice Milmo.
Television dealers who installed a set for a minor at his
address but entered into a hiring agreement with one of his
reatives were unsuccessful in an appeal against conviction for
contravening Section 5 (1) (a) of the Wireless Telegraphy Act,
1967, by failing to notify the Postmaster General of the letting
to the minor.
Pageantry Radio and T.V. Co.. Ltd. v Connell; Galione v
Connell; Q.B. Division; 18/7/1972.
Restraint of Trade
Before Lord Justice Davies, Lord Justice Buckley and Lord
Justice Stephenson. Judgments delivered June 30th.
An appeal to determine the validity of a covenant in
restraint of trade in a standard form of contract used by
.hairdressers was competent even though the period covered by
the restraint had expired. Their Lordships allowed the appeal,
by Marion White Limited, Harpenden, against the decision of
Deputy Judge Solomon at Bletchley and Leighton Buzzard
County Court last November that a covenant imposing restraint
of trade on Miss Ann Francis, of Wing, was contrary to public
policy and void, and granted a declaration that the covenant
was valid.
Marion White Ltd. v Francis; Court of Appeal; 3/7/1972.
Crime
Before Lord Wilberforce, Lord Pearson, Lord Simon of
Glaisdale, Lord Cross of Chelsea and Lord Salmon.
To state as a proposition that men are incapable of being
depraved and corrupted by pornographic books because they
are addicts of such books is contrary to the whole basis of the
Obscene Publications Acts, 1959. The Act is not merely con-
cerned with the once for all corruption of the wholly innocent;
it equally protects the less innocent from further corruption
and the addict from feeding or increasing his addiction.
Director of Public Prosecutions v Whyte and Another;
House of Lords; 19/7/1972.
Before Lord Widgery, the Lord Chief Justice, Mr. Justice
Melford Stevenson and Mr. Justice Milmo.
In arriving at the value of blue publications for the purpose
of determining a fine for evading the prohibition on their
importation, the Court is not restricted by distinctions between
the so-called black market and white market. What has to be
sought is the price which a willing seller would accept from
a willing buyer at the port or airport where the goods are
landed.
Byrne v Low; Q.B. Division; 14/7/1972.
Before Lord Widgery, the Lord Chief Justice, Mr. Justice
Melford Stevenson and Mr. Justice Milmo.
As a matter of strict law car auctioneers did not "offer for
sale" a car they auctioned, and therefore could not be convicted
of the offence of offering to sell an unroadworthy car contrary
to Section 68 of the Road Traffic Act, 1960, as amended—now
Section 60 of the Road Traffic Act 1967.
British Car Auctions Ltd. v Wright; Q.B. Division; 12/7/72.
Before Lord Reid, Lord Morris of Borth-y-Gest, Viscount
Dilhorne, Lord Diplock and Lord Kilbrandon.
The behaviour of an anti-apartheid demonstrator at Wimble-
don last year which annoyed the spectators and caused them
to protest vehemently was not "insulting behaviour" within
Section 5 of the Public Order Act, 1936. The word "insulting"
in that context has to be given its ordinary meaning and is
not a question of law.
Brutus v Cozens; House of Lords; 19/7/1972.
Before Lord Justice Roskill, Mr. Justice Milmo and Mr.
Justice Bridge.
The Court dismissed appeals by Clarksons Holidays Ltd.
against their conviction at Halifax Quarter Sessions (Recorder,
Mr. J. A. Cotton) on seven out of eight counts of recklessly
making false statements in their 1970 holiday brochure, con-
trary to Section 14 (1) of the Trade Descriptions Act, 1968,
regarding the nature and provision of facilities and accommo-
dation at the Hotel Calypso in Benidorm, Spain.
Rcgina v Clarksons Holidays Ltd.; Court of Appeal; 7/7/72.
Before Lord Widgery, the Lord Chief Justice, Mr. Justice
Melford Stevenson and Mr. Justice Milmo.
The fact that a publican gave S. A. Latter, aged 39, motor
mechanic, three bottles of diabetic lager without telling him
that it was stronger than ordinary lager was held to be a special
reason for not imposing the mandatory disqualification for
driving with an excess of blood alcohol contrary to Section 1
(1) of the Road Safety Act, 1967.
Alexander v Latter; Q.B. Division; 12/7/1972.
Before Lord Justice Edmund Davies, Lord Justice Orr and
Mr. Justice Browne.
The Court held that "malicious damage" of whatever value
and extent committed between 9 p.m. and 6 a.m., which
entitled a police officer to arrest under Section 61 of the
Malicious Damage Act, 1861, was an arrestable offence within
Section 2 (4) of the Criminal Law Act, 1967, and that it was
not necessary, in order to justify entry into property to arrest a
person under Section 2 (6) of the 1967 Act, that the police
officer who first suspects the person of having committed an
arrestable offence and seeks to arrest him under Section 4 (4)
of the 1967 Act was the same person who effected entry in
order to arrest under Section 2 (6).
Regina v Francis, Court of Appeal; 4/7/1972.
Before Lord Widgery, the Lord Chief Justice, Mr. Justice
MacKenna and Mr. Justice Willis.
When the Secretary of State approved the Alcotest (R) 80
device for the purposes of breath tests under the Road Safety
Act, 197, he must be assumed to have had in mind that the
device had an in-built potential of corrosion of the wire gauze
holding the crystals in place in the tube.
Their Lordships so stated when dismissing an appeal by
L. A. Parsons, pickling factory owner, of Llanelli, from his
conviction at Carmarthenshire Quarter Sessions (Deputy Chair-
man, Mr. S. J. Havard Evans) after a three-day trial last
August of driving with an excess proportion of alcohol in his
blood, contrary to Section 1 (1) of the Act. He was fined £30,
disqualified for three years and ordered to pay costs.
Regina v Parsons; Court of Appeal; 29/6/1972.
Before Lord Widgery, the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Justice
Edmund Davies, Lord Justice Orr, Mr. Justice Browne and
Mr. Justice Willis.
A hopelessly corrupt and wholly unreliable transcript of a
summing-up was not of itself a ground for saying that a
conviction was unsafe and unsatisfactory. A five-judge court
dismissed an appeal by J. E. Le-Caer, aged 47, club proprietor,
of Putney, from his conviction for malicious wounding at Inner
London Quarter Sessions (Deputy Chairman, Judge Lermon,
Q.C.) in October. An appeal against a two years' sentence was
allowed, the sentence being reduced to one year.
Regina v Le-Caer; Court of Appeal; 26/6/1972.
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