The Gazette 1993

GAZETTE

SEPTEMBER 1993

The Kilkenny Incest Case

Kieron Wood,

Poolbeg Press,

Dublin, 1993,165pp. paperback £4.99

Everyone has read or heard the reports

of the Kilkenny incest case. They will

also have read or heard the

unreserved and universal

condemnation from all quarters of our

society at the failure to take notice. In

the course of their work, many

j lawyers will have heard and dealt with

cases of beating, sexual abuse and

terror in family homes.

But even knowing the story of this

case, and even being hardened by

hearing stories of horror before, this

book, which tells just the girl victim's

story, has the power to shock, to

sicken and to anger; more for the

unremitting nature of the brutal

assaults and for the senseless cruelties

inflicted by her father than for the

spectacular incidents which hit the

headlines.

The child was ten when her father first

raped her. That incident is recounted

on page 21 of this book and the

remaining 144 pages tell in plain and

simple language the brutality and

cruelty that this girl endured, the fear

and the influences that kept her from

complaining and the determined

closing of eyes and ears in the

community to her screams and

battered, broken body. She also

explains her continuing fears today,

giving her a patrimony of a life

sentence of fear.

The book is the girl's story as told to

Kieron Wood,

the legal affairs

correspondent at RTE. The style is

reminiscent of a detailed statement

! taken by a solicitor which has been

| edited for the purposes of a brief to

í counsel. Mr. Wood offers no comment

[ other than in a prologue. None is

I necessary. The story stands on its own

j as an indictment and incentive to

change and to care, by all of us in this,

our modern Ireland.

Noeline Blackwell

Irish Criminal Law Journal

i Edited by Shane Murphy, Round

Hall Press, subscription £35.00 p.a. 2

I issues per year, (approx. 250pp).

The Irish Criminal Law Journal was

launched in June, 1991. In his

Foreword to the first issue Mr. Justice

I Hugh O 'Flaherty

referred to the

i. mixture of the theoretical and the

practical aspects of the criminal law

which was to be found in that issue. He

commended the fact that a number of

the contributors were no"effete

academics but hardened gladiators of

the forensic arena". It is clear that this

vital mixture of the practical and

theoretical has continued in the three

; issues of the Journal published since

then. The range of topics covered in

S the four issues has also been

impressive. The first issue alone

includes articles on the adequacy of the

remedy of Presidential Pardon in

miscarriage of justice cases, the new

! offences created by the Larceny Act,

| 1990, the distinction between criminal

and civil libel, causation in the law of

homicide, intoxication and criminal

responsibility, the effect of ESDA

evidence and issues raised by the

introduction of DNA profiling.

This latter article on DNA profiling is

wide ranging and informative.

However, some of the language used

may be off-putting to criminal law

practitioners. For example, there are

references to "the investigative and

adjudicative paradigm" and "the verity

of the objective/forensic equation".

Such expressions may be too rich for

the more prosaic palate of the

practitioner. This illustrates the

j difficulty of combining in one journal

I the practical and academic approaches

| to the study of criminal law. It is

unfortunate that this difficulty should

arise because if a practitioner were to

overcome his prejudice against the use

of what he might consider to be opaque

language, he would find in the article

on DNA profiling much that is helpful

and stimulating. However, I suspect

that he is more likely to turn to an

article such as that on the custodial

treatment for young offenders,

' contained in the same issue, which

| offers a very useful guide through the

labyrinthine provisions of the Children j

Act, 1908.

The December 1992 edition covers

] issues ranging from the plea of self

defence in homicide cases to the

privilege against self-incrimination and

from the Military Courts-Martial to

reflections on the role of the Attorney

] General in the Patrick Ryan affair. It

also contains some 50 pages of case

notes, which are reproduced by

permission of the

Irish Times.

This

Digest facility, introduced in the

December 1991 issue, is of inestimable

value to the busy practitioner,

summarising, as it does, the leading

criminal cases of the year.

An article on Goodman -v- The Beef

| Tribunal might at first glance seem out

of place in a criminal law journal,

However, the article reviews the

I decisions of the High Court and

Supreme Court on the challenge to The

| Beef Tribunal, on the grounds,

inter

alia,

that the enquiry constituted a

criminal trial in all but name. The

author concludes on a note of caution

that public enquiries may displace the

courts from their position of centrality

and thereby undermine their value.

The article on self-defence in homicide

cases I have mentioned illustrates the

value of a publication such as the

Journal. The author examines the plea

i of self-defence since the landmark

decision of the Supreme Court in

Dwyer.

The central question addressed

in that case was whether the plea of

| self-defence to a murder charge would

lie where an unreasonable amount of

| force was used, which the accused

! nonetheless honestly believed was

| reasonable. In

Dwyer

the Supreme

Court adopted a "half-way house" by

stating that in such a circumstance the

! appropriate verdict was manslaughter,

The author criticises the decision on a

number of grounds; that the test that

! must be applied as to the reasonable-

ness of the force used and the honesty

of the accused's belief is too complex

i and requires the jury to apply an unreal

and artificial reasoning process to

| questions of fact, that it fails to take

account of developments in the doctrine

mens rea

since the English decision

Continued on page 272

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