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dence as to the conspiracy depended almost en
tirely on the evidence of Mrs. C, whose character
was attacked in cross-examination. Counsel for L
sought to discredit Mrs. C's evidence by calling
the witness to establish that her evidence could
not be relied upon. He asked the witness, whether
in the light of Mr s.G's general reputation for
veracity he would be prepared to believe her on
oath. The witness was not allowed to complete or
qualify his reply. Counsel sought to ask witness
the question : "From your personal knowledge of
Mrs. C would you believe her on oath?" The
question was not allowed. The defendants were
convicted and sentenced. The appeals were dis
missed. During the course of the judgment on
the Court of Appeal the cases of R. v. Gune-
wardene (1951) 2 KB 600 and Toohey v. Metro
politan Police Commissioner
(1965) A.C. 595
were cited. The method resorted to by Counsel
for L when it sought to discredit Mrs. C's vital
evidence, though little known and rarely used, was
of considerable antiquity. The situation arose so
rarely
that none of
the Lords who decided
Toohey's case had ever experienced it.
(R. v. Longman, R. v. Richardson,
Solicitors'
Journal
Vol. 112, p. 353).
A conspiracy to defraud
A conspiracy to cheat and defraud in relation to
the assets of a company is to act with deliberate
dishonesty to the prejudice of another person's
proprietary right and the question for a jury is
whether the defendants could have thought that
a board of directors acting honestly would have
agreed to the course taken.
(Reg.
v.
Sinclair;
R.
v.
Queenswood
[Holdings] Ltd. R. v. Smithson Court of Appeal
June, 29th, 1968).
Rights of defendant
An unrepresented defendant should be warned of
the risk of attacking prosecution witnesses but the
warning should not be given in open court :
the
proper practice is for the prosecution's represen
tative to ask for an adjournment and, after the
justices have retired, for him to enlist the help of
the justice's clerk to explain the risk to the de
fendant.
(Reg. v. Weston-super-Mare Justices, Ex parte
Townsend-Q.B.D., June, 24th, 1968).
Defendant's intention
On a charge of attempt, the defendant's intention
expressed at the time and afterwards is irrelevant
to see what an equivocal actus reus is directed;
but the prosecution must then show that the act
itself is sufficiently proximate to an amount to
attempt to commit the specific crime which it was
the defendant's intention to commit.
(Jones v. Brooks. Q.B.D., June 25, 1968).
Plea of Guilty
The following practice direction was given by
Lord Parker, C. J. at the Court of Appeal in
England on April 1st 1968.
"In the opinion of
this court
it would be
regrettable if, as a result of the Criminal Pro
cedure Act, 1967, the press and the public were
deprived of the right inherent in our system of
the administration of criminal justice, to know
the circumstances of the crime for which an ac
cused is convicted and sentenced.
This can only occur in cases in which under
that Act, either there have been no committal
proceedings or committal proceedings which can
not be fully reported, and in which in either
event the accused pleads guilty at the trial. How
ever, even in such cases the prosecution state the
facts in open court at the trial and this
they
should continue to do though in somewhat more
detail than heretofore.
The only exception is
the comparatively rare
case when an accused pleads guilty at the trial
to murder, in which case there is only one sen
tence, life imprisonment, which can be imposed.
There is then, so far as the judge is concerned,
no need for any reference to the circumstances of
the crime, since whatever the circumstances the
sentence must be the same. The judge will have
read the depositions; the accused will inevitably
be advised and represented by counsel, and often
by leading counsel, and the accused will have
chosen to plead guilty. Moreover, so far as the
public was concerned until the changes effected
by the Criminal Justice Act, 1967 the committal
proceedings were held in public.
This court however recognises that if this should
be the practice for the future there may be rare
cases in which the circumstances of the murder
are never publicly
revealed*. That
is
clearly-
wrong. Accordingly, this court directs that the
prosecution, following a plea of guilty to murder
should, as in cases of pleas of guilty to other
offences, state the facts
in open court before
sentence is imposed.
*This practice Direction is a sequal to the lack
of publicity exemplified
in R. V. Sokol,
The
Times,
March 29th, 1968. The Practice Direction
is to be found in [1968] 2 All E.R. 144.
49