GAZETTE
SEPTEMBER 1993
The Kilkenny Incest Case
By
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
j
Hall Press, subscription £35.00 p.a. 2
I issues per year, (approx. 250pp).
1
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
j
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
í
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
j
that he is more likely to turn to an
j
article such as that on the custodial
j
treatment for young offenders,
' contained in the same issue, which
| offers a very useful guide through the
j
labyrinthine provisions of the Children j
Act, 1908.
|
The December 1992 edition covers
j
] issues ranging from the plea of self
!
defence in homicide cases to the
privilege against self-incrimination and
from the Military Courts-Martial to
i
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
j
criminal cases of the year.
An article on Goodman -v- The Beef
i
| Tribunal might at first glance seem out
of place in a criminal law journal,
j
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
1
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
j
j
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
i
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
j
stating that in such a circumstance the
! appropriate verdict was manslaughter,
í
The author criticises the decision on a
number of grounds; that the test that
j
! 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
j
| questions of fact, that it fails to take
account of developments in the doctrine
of
mens rea
since the English decision
'
Continued on page 272
271